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Cleopatra's Magick and More Everything Abandoned Must Go On You cannot hear or see dancers on plush carpets. The katydids will cover the walls with grand pliés-- I like remembering wolverines sprawled in bathtubs, large branches spying like the Queen of Wands. It won’t matter if you leave the faucets on. One day they may resume their can-can pragmatism and douse the curtains in hibiscus liquid. These rooms trace a cross on their foreheads. A mattress curls and sucks its thumb. Let the chandeliers salt the floorboards-- These are our last rites. Bathing Cleopatra Sarcophagi cascade from milk jugs-- White inks obliterate her black hair & black eyes & black lips painted to bring the sun closer to her teeth. The maids dunk her jewels, let them lick her toes and navel. Sometimes she asks to be left alone with her carnelian lined across her damp & hungry breasts. The High Priestess and the Hierophant Are With Child As you sleep, your favorite constellations will puddle at the corners of your mouth & you will pick them from your teeth come morning. Do not flush them down the drain—They are seeds. Instead, baste them into yourself & become a surrogate. Become a martyr to the Arcana & watch Mars lean to feel the kick of your belly. Be proud of your new gravitas & grand plié once like a feral castle left to collapse & sag into the elderly sea. Watch a new World cyst around you and roll stolidly into place. Gray Magick I. It is difficult to see past the old gas station-- This fog keeps my own hands from me, but reveals the uncaged crags of my unusually wet voice. I call for you—a summoning. You confuse the pulse of my blue raincoat for another cresting wave. II. Let us pray for everyone who has ever loved the moon. Morgana, comparing one cold necromancy to another, traces two arrowed hearts in the sand-- one is swept fast under the shag of sea, while the other reflects maddeningly across the sheen of each tentacle and in her own eyes. She will rub them at every break of sleep, only to find caked moonlight on her pillow. III. I like to look at my own reflection, but only while wading in salt water. It gently filters the olive from my face and for a moment I am both alive and ghosted under one weakened sun. I scoop this self into a yellow cockle and unhinge it like a compact when I feel vain about what is to come. The Arrival of Salem Everyone is naked except for the salt they carry & everyone believes in the virgin with a full deck of cards-- She names her first daughter Rebecca & shucks the flickering light bulb from her mouth, red from sleep. Names her second Unhaunted & watches both play through latticed windows. She knows they are ghosts, feral as moons, & still she cleans their bald palms. She says one of you is America & one of you is a chrysanthemum shrine & that is for you to decide. #Unreal #Magic #Cleopatra #Morgana #Witches Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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