ST. JOHN THE DIVINE Aydan Shahd
50
Wrung with gold sitting in thick sun watching the peacocks bask in the churchyard, hot honey pastry glistens on the lip and the copper sword greening before his eyes. I am soil on his bare soles. O beautiful, reddest red sliding down my chest this morning where I fell on my knife so I could kneel far enough down to kiss the smooth arch of his foot without loss or recompense. My lover has swallowed the sun of wonder and foolishness and it has pinked his cheeks, God he is a holey rowboat giddy sinking. I put my mouth to his belly and drink the sea. We will die here like this yes picking bark from the tree frail crumbling and feverish. I am the ants streaming from my wooden finger, a thousand limbs unaware of self, drawn only to sweetness. Swarming the bleeding sap where my skull melts into his thigh. At the end of the summer rain the peacocks scream! Lightning.
