Melchizadek
Neil Patterson
Originally
published in Issue XVIII of Vulgata, February 2008.
Thief,
I taste the sole of your foot
as you push in rapt panic
through the freshest gloom you have ever known.
I am the restless sand you are beating on;
I cover you with a blanket of frozen stars.
My indescretions are manifold
like children building forts with bedcovers
and banging on crystal spheres.
Your quicksand drains into the furnace of my body.
I burp up glass bubbles.
* * *
But Melchizadek was not known until my sister
poured herself out into a perfect animal handstand,
revolving the galaxy so that her Atlantian eyes
bore the whole weight of it and stared the
heavens down.
I taste the sole of your foot
as you push in rapt panic
through the freshest gloom you have ever known.
I am the restless sand you are beating on;
I cover you with a blanket of frozen stars.
My indescretions are manifold
like children building forts with bedcovers
and banging on crystal spheres.
Your quicksand drains into the furnace of my body.
I burp up glass bubbles.
* * *
But Melchizadek was not known until my sister
poured herself out into a perfect animal handstand,
revolving the galaxy so that her Atlantian eyes
bore the whole weight of it and stared the
heavens down.