Sapphic

For you, I pluck lilies from my eyes

And reel moonlight from the gap between breaths.

For in the eyes of man, you are divinity and as

Worshipers they construct you temples of silk and eyelashes.

But I am not of man.

So I build you a home from bone

And flesh and the salt of my veins—

A gesture of humanity.

Of love.

For our devotion is the pain dividing

Finger tips and fire—

Pigeon love and the devil’s dance

Made holy by adoration of the heart, of the veins.

Impurity turns to dust beneath your feet and

I collect the ashes, reform and rebuild,

Homunculus of honey and us.

Beneath Luna’s light we interlock,

And I collect your upturned teeth

In the dim of yellow streetlights.

On Sunday the men of monochrome will declare us

Damned among Ares’s children.

You laugh, because Elysium has long been reached

And compassion was born from the tears in your eyes.

Maybe the twisting of our fingertips is the

Abomination of God, but the spider webs of honest

Communication we build between our tongues is

Worth the destruction of immortality.

Trust is the tower we construct upon the

Curve and tremble of our rib cages.

In the morning radiance I weave your hair into poetry,

Each strand a stanza, every loop a declaration of choice.

I call you Diana and Minerva and Juno,

And you whisper beloved and be loved,

But I am not a disciple and you are not a god.

We are equals through scars and touch.

The love that connects our beating hearts may not

Be sanctified by saintly ordination, but it is real

And it is human and it is ours. We are the people of the

Moon and sea and we shall last as long as

Our lips decree it.