Lilith

I will not stop at your skin.
I won't turn back at the dazzle
of your purity, that most subtle 
substance of erotic fire.
I pass through your locks and doors,
a villain of galaxies
scattered in your thimbleful
of brownest loam.
I imbibe You, not the color 
of your flock, or scent of your 
ancestral herd.
I taste the smoke of your true 
volcano, your voice,
not the missing tooth in your
old harp of chromosomes.
I see mountains melt 
and tumble down your spine
from the death's head of wisdom
to the broken pomegranate
in your birth valley.
Smell the musk of your tears,
hearken your bloody drum throbs,
flutes in your panther walk
as you shoulder all darkness 
between the stars 
and growl down black paths 
through the core of Andromeda,
which is the core of every proton 
in my body. 
I insist on beholding the smokeless 
undulant flame of your form
as it scorches my eye, 
feeling the pain of your breath
as it pierces my bones.
Why is there no serpent
among the constellations?
Because You are the writhing
braid of them all,
the ram, lion, scorpion, bear.
You ride them across the stream 
of desire.
They are like mossy stepping stones 
in your river of death.
You are a veil within 
a veil beneath a veil,
moonlight of the illusion
that we could ever be two.
You are the dangerous conjunction 
of Venus and the Sun.
This is when we devour 
each other's absence,
loss becomes a Way,
you have no shape but the crystal 
of my sacred imagination,
and I hear the lethal silence 
of owl wings preying on my fur.


Image: Lady Lilith by Dante Rossetti