Sea-Stir
Tyler Friend
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.