Excavations

Eros and Thanatos at the Juncture of Lovemaking

Pictures curl together a locket,
strands of soul untouched by sun;
each to each, held warm to the breastbone, each one.

You in Babylonian sky, hot midafternoon;
you, hurrying to your temple
laden with tablets: grain reports,
taxes, tallies of household slaves.
I crashed into you, aflutter with my perfumed duties;
cuneiform spilled onto the stones
and scurried away in a swarm of wedge-shaped ants.
The blessings of Inanna, I murmured
and then the flood washed us both away
like so much silt from the Tigris

(Had I only known you then)

I would have danced my scarves in the temple moonlight


You in ritual mask, eyes hidden behind goddess;
knowing that the lot has been drawn,
even your daughter, firstborn -
did I protest the sacrifice, my love,
gazing at you with questioning cateyes
to make your needs upset the sacred scales?
I did not. I bowed low, forehead to the ground
that was your goddess feet, and rose
to climb the hill of lava
and sacred death

(Had I only held you then)

We would have commanded the sun to still


In moonlight hot as fire,
an alpine chill breathing jealous cold
at our castle walls;
you are drunk enough to halt in your ghost tale
to slosh against my wife's ear -
I did not challenge you to duel, then;
at least not in earnest. Or to the death.
But I partook of wine and incense
and swore brotherhood by ancient rite -
and the incense smoke curled curls
giving birth to phantoms made of moon, Alby,
to contracts signed in much essence

(Had I not drowned in your seas)

A prodigious poem we would have made, in Attic Greek


The jungle wavers, hot with blood
darkness of sunlight
lust. And your youth in quiltwork,
my friend, all thread embroidery spilling
out of the basket, onto the yellow silk
red of the Asian soil:
your tapestry cried to be unwoven:
How could I refuse Atropos, to hold you yet to me?
Thus I swallowed my jealousy of the shadow lover
and stood in her place, again,
sending you that time to her arms
knowing the whore would have me next.
And I stared scrying into your entrails' weavings,
seeing your soul fly west
on the back of the bird

(Had we not stopped for death)

We would have damned ourselves for eternity some more


You are soul in weavings still,
a cord that braids itself in my hand
to become a Kundalini serpent, unknowing.
Night sky and hot fire from the candles
witness our sacred marriage
our rite of rebirth, our re-remembering
in these bodies warm and masked in love's
bare bones encased in flesh.
Your arms holding me phoenix
in the heart of the hierogram;

Soul strands, links of fire,
passion the outstretched arms of death -
and from your embrace, Mystic Sister,
I draw forth my breath:

I would pray to my muse to teach a scythe to sing