It’s another fiction Monday, focusing on poetry. I have been invited to present poetry this weekend, at last!, at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor’s Writer’s Festival, based on a few snippets of work I have completed in the past. Here is the last of a series in poetry, for next week, after the conference, I hope to bring you some fiction. But, for now …
Trough the Ivory Gate
We found it natural, Narcissus and I,
pocket-books open to divvy out echoing change the waiter had not earned
after forgetting both sugar and soup while the table beside was
ringed with bridesmaids playing games with language and virginity
as if the two were interchangeable.
The night had warranted the outcasts to come with open palms and present their
offspring up for auction, extending the limp tulips as treasured prize, and
we acquiesced readily,
though because the taxi had finally arrived or for the sake of charity
only we and Dionysius, masquerading as patron saint above us, would ever know.
The cathedral was out of place in the lights of restaurants and minimarts,
casting its condemning but trivial gaze always.
So
in the taxi we got and her head slumped and found solace upon my shoulder
and I let my eyes sink with the lullabies of Phlegyas
ferrying us to the other side of dreams
where we fell over, clutching rotted posies along with the offered children
who placed thumb to index finger to make the endless ring
dropping ashes in the void.
Dionysius with his freshly plucked virgins cavorted through our circle
under the torn Heaven being offered to the fires of Molech,
until we rose again and headed out from the garden
going east
through the Ivory Gate.
© 2011, Preston. All rights reserved.
