Petal Witches

you and I hum

like petal witches

 coaxing silver barrows over moons

                       spinning straw into gold

                                   and dropping copper into wells without bottom

lilies for Mary but you were the bloom

you still wear Eden on your lips

and the night round your wrist

                   like a sleeping owl

                             in an hourglass myth

                   I hear you mutter in your dreams

I brushed the honeysuckle from your hair 

and we sank like priests 

from the garden 

into cabernet waters

                   water into wine, my Lord

                     our miracle came first

glowed moon as white ghosts 

pushed sex to tear the full

             and thoughtfully crept 

                              artfully slow

                                         towards a sleeping Adam

this dance 

this ghostly waltz across time 

they still toss about my apple

peeling slowly skin from flesh and suck the seeds like bones

                           what did you learn, Eve?

my daughters tiptoe shamed

mourning for a promised rib

while poppies bloom between their legs

                          call me witch and cloak me in serpent

                          I dance like an asp betrayed

I crossed my womb 

                   and the myth became real

an angel stands at the gates of Paradise

spinning his sword and chanting Babylon

but you and I hum

like petal witches

now long-barren and rocking empty cradles

                      you would not lay beneath a man and I refused to trust

were we so wrong, sister?

sweetly curved and lashed with heaven’s lore

we still coax silver barrows over moons

                   pressing lips to amulets

                          and praying for sin again

—published in The General (2008)