isis in the golden pavilion

wherein lies the heart of the beast
do not meddle with the gods we are riding
chariots of bones, do not pretend to take our avatr
apart. you think your weak and trembling psyche
caught up in your squalorous room in the middle
of a cesspool of a kalpa can change the tides
brought of a waning moon, do you not remember

the way we used your feet to guide us into the sea
between shales of craggy rocks bent on your blood how we
saved you the trouble of beach shoes and even the touch
of your shark baiting partner? we have plans for you my
little starfish my amphibious feeder of air. yes, these stories
he scorned are the musical we're watching so get with
the program and just record.





&*(*^














so you leave me to my life and i to yours
this is what adults do, we morphed from midges
or the life cycles of fireflies before sand
dollars. we morphed from gametes
glossing tennessee seas. adults crawl

along the bottom
with a skin of spines,
drawing iodine
from sand into a tobacco stain
for my hands to match
inside of my breath,
these many years devoted
to filling my lungs with goodbye
so we can settle
into the bottom
stop moving
group like flowers
and clones in the used robot store.
remembering green.















but that was not the miracle
it was a day when paradise called
to her denizens, the beach sparsely populated
but enough to remove the idea of copulated
we could still share a joint, a bottle
of red, a walk until
past the first mangrove, the obvious rocks
a couple of benches in memory of
i got hot and bored and tired.
dropped my bag,
stripped my skirt and waded out.

the sand bar came up to meet me, i turned
motioned you in. you followed, trusting
my footsteps, no misstep so we dive
into the salt and mother ocean
and i feel the magic come in
but i'm not listening i 'm telling you
some story or weaving opinions
and options into the stew. i search
for sand dollars with the sea up to my neck
feel the familiar soft stone hump, brush
to the edges of it and lift it with my toes.
i show you this trick over and over
my hand fills with the round test, stars
embedded in centers. it's my stupid human trick
i say. you laugh, tell me how refreshing it is
to hear your own metaphors from someone
else's mouth. you think it means we see things
the same way, like how we see the sheep
we have contempt and pity for, the ones
in whose flock we hide, braying,
trying to keep from being
mutton.

i do not know. my hand is filled with the dead
creatures. i offer half of them to you, searcb
for more. when my hand is full again
i stop and float in water the temperature of perfect.
streams of warm on top, cool at the bottom.
i am a little cilica tube between gods i do not name
i let them kiss anonymously
gravity for their lust.
a bridge of flesh breathing and floating and meeting.


so we smoke and talk and drink
the no see ems begin to bite the sun
is going down. the breeze is idylic.
when i hear the red winged blackbird's
song, i tell you how she's my totem, point
to her flying there, ahead of us, dropping
into the sand at the high tideline. the tide's
gone low, exposing the rocks we missed, to
either side of where we walked in, blindly.
you laugh at the fortune and i smile, repeat
this is my beach, i did nothing but let it lead me.

we divide all the tests
between us. you wrap yours
carefully in your backpack
but i am less so.
i understand that i will not
get them all home safely.
that was never the point.
i see them as signposts of health
cut flowers of the sea
constancies revolving
summer to summer
hiding just below the surface
breathing like a heart.