Creature Speak

Where has my lover gone?

Trapped in the snapping jaws of techno-sharks and alligator clauses, creatures always circle.  

They want a piece of him and they don’t like to share.

What is left for him when they’ve taken his skin?

What is left for me when they’ve stolen his eyes?

What to do with all the whispers and lies filling his ears so he can’t hear anything else?

Can I be as Persephone and descend into hell where at least the shadows make sense?

Will I find him there, making friends with Hades, hoping to borrow the Helm of Invisibility 

to make the takers vanish or blind them?

Or will I find my love resting on the shore of black water, reflecting a forever-night without stars?  

Will he have finally found peace with nothing to see?

Will he have reprieve without me?

Will he ask me to leave him in the dark?

Or will he take my hand and return to the land above in time for new life to bud?

Will the fruit ripen again and will the flowers ever bloom?

Will he take up his chariot soon, as Triptolemus, The Great Farmer, feeding the serpents 

who pull him across the world by my mother’s decree, so he can sew the seeds of Spring once more?

And will I conjour the door, the exit from Eden so he can go forth and make a garden of the earth?

Will he ever return to rest with me?

Or will I burn for eternity, unconfined in the forest of our dreams?

Will the fire without the heart of its flame swallow the trees, and turn the rivers and streams into steam?

Will I create the mists this way and dissipate on the winds of time, 

like the crystal sands of hope falling through the trembling hands of love when the reaping bell chimes:

fingers not big enough to hold the hunger of the world with my famished soul?

Some things slip away as a matter of life, hard as we may try to hold on;  

And whether dawn returns from the belly of night depends on the light we’ve spawn.

So sleep now, Beloved, and dream well.  

For when morning comes, the spell will break.

The serpents will hiss you awake, that I may kiss you once again when the drums of recall 

beckon us up to greet the sun with new resolve.

Copyright © Sheyorah Naify, 2021