Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
In the beginning, there was darkness
and the touch of your hand on my waist,
bent into Achelous transformed, or perhaps
Barye’s Lion and Serpent,
our bodies always crushed,
our mouths open and I don’t know if it’s pain
or if we’re poised to bite, tongue to teeth
mouth to mouth and you’re smiling again
and I am etching your name along the knobs
of my spine… little cursive runny curlicues,
and with it your hand is once again in mine
and until now only my blood was flowing
past my ribs, clasped between our palms,
but now our reds interlace, my name etched
where the end of both your shoulder blades
press into fatty flesh, and now
I browse the sculptures and check them there too,
imagining fingers pressed into their backs,
and then into yours- little bumps, hair,
the cut almost triangle (the strongest shape),
forming first the M, then a jagged A, and
there are arrows in so many sides,
Sebastian-esque piercings, knives, spears,
rock-white blood oozing.
Can you carry me Zephyr?, Ruxthiel can
once again chip at your hands…
feel my ribs, a veil, my heart threatening to
spill over, to climb up your throat.
I once thought our lips were stone and
I’ve spent five minutes walking to find
an immortalized marble kiss with perpetual
infinite space and I think about how our kisses,
primordial, are also infinite,
and while you or I end, we live forever.
In the beginning, the serpent tricked Eve, and
we watched, our lips infinite, mine
pressed to your chest, your neck, your temple,
your nape, the space below your knee, your thigh,
the bone between pectorals, the butterfly bone,
and when I touch his fingers I try to feel yours, and
he is a grain and you… and you
are the sand in Seine adjacent sidewalk cracks.
And maybe universal sin isn’t so
bad a price to pay to see the way your hand cradles
mine even one more time.
You’re a good kisser and we are the only kiss ever,
white lips, soft bodies, stone surrounding and
it doesn’t smell like convent in here, all wood, honey-sweet
and that means God is dead, and
Jesus’s body lays next to me, alabaster feet sunlight cradled
And I wonder where his soul went when he wasn’t
dragging the good from hell, and I remember
we were there, remember the touch of
your fingers, and we were beautiful, hellfire flickers
turning shadowed faces to parades of light.
Fall in eternal slow motion to me, there
has to be an end, but for now I am
pressing my fingers to my lips to try to remember
the shadow of those kisses you gave me,
how they shuddered then exploded.
I unplug my ears in what is yet another tapestry room so
I can think about you, and sure enough once again
your hand is on my wrist and we are beautiful,
marble eyes full of something like want,
lips frozen centimeters apart, but we can’t want anymore,
because with us and infinity we have everything.
Mary Rose Beeken is a young adult poet from Lexington, Kentucky who will be attending Smith College as an English major with a poetry concentration starting in the fall of 2022. She has written poetry since a very young age and has been published in school literary magazines as well as the Sad Girl's Club literary blog, and she very is excited to share her work.