A poem about modern love and obsession, told through the story of Antony and Cleopatra.
--
When the phone rings
And no one is there
Its your name I whisper to the empty air
Be still, my little God
Oh, won’t you come see about me?
You are the space between night and day
Twilight’s lost lash, a wish on the tip of my finger
You breathe life between my thighs
Like a piper for a pickled pepper
Or was it a plum pie?
I drip sanity into your mouth
Smooth obsession from your lips
A kiss for a kiss,
And God I’d love to tell.
When my love runs low you will be the flood
40 days and nights of tantric orgasm
A gentle sway on the bow of your hips
We are adrift
Two bodies left facedown in the Nile
Upon further examination,
The crumb was a tooth
Yours, an infant trophy, a treasure chest
A trembling visage in winter water
A shadow of a shivering and inconstant you
The kind of glimmer you can trace
With the edge of a silver tongue
Oh,
If only I could find you here
In the towers and turrets,
In the summer shoals
In the eye of Horus, who must find us
To be so fickle, so self-satisfied—
Death plays the drums
On the bones of the tender-hearted
An operatic pitch into the open palm
Of the afterlife
You know this dance so intimately;
The asp was always you, after all
A slender figure in a garden lush with
Heavy fruit, which, once dilated, ripens
And bursts apart
A rain made of sugar-sweet juice
That dribbles from your chin
And disappears beneath your collar
With every long look,
You plant your seed in my ground
A bloom, I give you spring
Thrice, and do you love me, truly?
I hold your arms behind your back
I beg your loyalty, your forgiveness
I command your worship, your submission
Like mountains crumbling into the sea
Or armies falling to their knees
A Queen amongst the Hellenists.
And when the receiver presses into my ear,
Your name is all that I can spare;
“Antony?”
