What you all along have known,
I now, too—all these years,
I have felt around its prophet’s
mouth, looking for its tooth.
You would speak its tongue;
you would mock its sound;
with its own key you would unlock
translations of its most sacred songs
lending bone, breath & artery
to its ghost, clothing in part
memory/part fantasy the marbled
floor in the wet open maw
of the Shape, before which I
have fasted in bounty & bonny
harvest; fasted in sacrifice, while
others cunningly did feast.
But your devotion does not make
you the Shape; & as its guardian
you were right to refuse me
& bite down as swiftly as you did;
for having forgone all, with these
hungry & treacherous hands
I would have nicked & pawned
its holy relics for cheap,
so I could temporally eat.
Aleksander Zywicki is a first-year MFA candidate at The New School. He teaches AP English Literature in Bayonne, New Jersey. He lives & writes in Jersey City.
Comments are closed.