Oh Shepherd, our honeyed marriage
bed in the meadow was too narrow
and though you herd wild things,
you were deaf to my footsteps.
As you lay there in the dew of me, curled,
satiated, I tiptoed backwards
toward our door under twisted reeds.
Out where pasture led to brackish
waters and red-hot mists rose from quartz
I lowered myself into rockpores
while rushing wings of screech owls
seemed to sing: Welcome, Dark-Light
Welcome, Wild-Love
Home
Home
Away
From Simulacra by Airea D. Matthews, winner of the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets and published by Yale University Press.