Originally published in Paper Moon Magazine vol. 4
caraway seeds and bitter lemon,
estrogen, needles, extravagant lettering…
these things I sent to you by post,
by plane,
by my thoughts in the stars
turned to dreams, only in name
in it I dreamt I were a respite, galloping through the night
a cry rallying Galileo's brush
as it paints away the mysteries of the stars,
and gives birth to altogether new ones.
what does it mean to see something more than ourselves?
by letting sage smolder to smoke
and paramour wither like chokecherries on branches
her crimson lips faded,
crumbled like so many cakes of sienna.
and her hands, trembling, set fire to flame
weighted the wax that neither gave nor explained.
sealed in that missive of fact: her faith in a body,
celestial rather than her own.
by explaining the stars she had buried herself,
been made into a cosmological pinprick,
a minute nothing hidden among golden sequins
exiled by an obsession of the mind,
absent the heart.
when we forget ourselves, where do we go?
years passed and my dream still lingered, a soft echo
like the sooty rings of trials past
worn proudly by the pitch pines of the east,
a collar ‘round my neck, rather than a diadem.
Galileo had woven a new cage for herself,
finely spun from the gossamer threads she collected
from the ghosts of her memories flitting through the air,
memories shared between her and I.
I started to see her in the shadows of closed doors,
peered at from behind mirrors.
her visage haunted me in every pen I put to paper,
every brush stroke I lovingly lent to lignin,
every whisper I passed to verse.
I had lived my life according to her treatise on the natural world
not realizing that the tears, dried up inside of me,
were the inks she used to pen this doctrine, my truth.
what does it mean to be a creature born of fear?
all my life I had thought myself the dreamer,
but with each glance shared between her and I
and the fear welled up in her tired little eyes,
I realized I was not respite, but roan,
a mare charging through the fragile night sky,
unaware of her soft porcelain skin cracking beneath my hooves.
and that rallying cry? a scream of anxiety clutching at her heart,
twisting the nerves of her hands into birthing
a truth that could neither be argued nor ignored.
…I thought that she had built herself a prison,
but hindsight reveals quite clearly: the delicate monofilament
woven into the plaits of my tail,
cabled and crossed as I danced around her,
each intersection one more trauma made manifest in this, her dreams.
how do we undo the hurt we inflict on ourselves?
I stooped my head in shame,
and though the dreamer did not immediately give way to the dream,
in my silence she unwove the shimmering cord that bound her, slowly,
alizarin trickling down her hands and arms like ice
giving way to the spring thaw,
the vigor of blood spreading from her fingers to her feet,
to the rosy mounds of her tear-stained cheeks.
as her chrysalis shed layer after layer,
my eyes burned with confusion;
why did the stars seem so much brighter?
why did my coat, previously so beautiful and vibrant,
feel so muted next to her?
had I been a shadow all along? not only a nightmare,
but a usurper?
the wet warmth of her oozing hands,
soft on my poll and muzzle,
pulled me away from my plagued thoughts.
her whispers in my ear were a balm on my aching heart,
my breath a hard staccato against the roughly chopped hair of her head.
I carried her then, with all the softness of a newborn babe,
to the edge of waking.
it was time for her dream to end, and mine to begin.
who am I in the shining light of day?