^{after H.D.’s “Circe”}

I was easy enough
to bend, to bend

over her altar. Easy enough
to touch & be touched. I drifted

on the great sea of drink, this sea
of white ash & rock & tamarisk.

It’s a risk, this. Come
& blacken my innermost forest.

Your fragrance, fragmented. All this
sea-magic. Nautical. I’m

nautilus-like, an easy
enough thing to be, I think. They cried

at the sight of my face & I prayed
only for your touch. My entreaty: please

come for me & (whispered): stay.
I pant for you & become

a sea-sound, a sea-stone. Sea
lion barking at your heels. I,

swirl of sand in the wind. I
resonate with your frequency.

[What is your frequency, Kenny?]

It is easy enough to call men
dirt & still

summon them to my feet.
They circle me like panthers, sleek

hounds. I could let them cover my sea-caves
with ivory & onyx. Me & my rock-

fringe coral, the palace
of this whole religion.