The Lay of Ayishah (5)

"Face 24b" © 2016 David Prashker

To listen to an audio recital of the poem, click here

Sun like a chrysalis
     piercing the night’s womb
          bursting open

Arms held to receive
     the heart’s embrace

A solitary kiss
     impressed like a sacred letter
          on a cryptogram
simple as an early form of printing

So we lay
     between the fixing of the nail
          and the leaf of the blue lotus
     between the peacock’s foot
          and the line of the hare

(Never before had flesh submitted
     so willingly to the rack)

Nights spent playing with dice
     Going out on moonlit evenings
Keeping the feast day
     in honour of the Spring
Plucking the sprouts of the mango tree
     Eating the fibres of blue lotuses
          the tender ears of corn
Picnicking in the forest
     beneath the trees’ new foliage
Combing the peacock’s tail...

Or we would walk the moon to sleep
     outpace the stars across the heavens
          outshine the comets with our sparkling talk

Until the lightness of our being
     had eclipsed the night
          and night fled into its own pitch dark

Until

     as cool as the pale wet leaves
          of lily-in-the-valley
she lay down beside me in the dawn




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