'Aquifer' is my favorite word.
The upper half of her body
is the sound of water,
the lower half the sigh of fire,
like a despondent moonbeam
deep in the forest. Now
the aquifer is underground,
but spoken it rises
through my lips, a breath
emerging as a woman entirely
carved of pearl and amber,
or an undulating mist, merely
eerie and wise, Sophia
permeating every form of
pain and sorrow, softening
the verdant stone, weaving
a mouse nest out of moss
in an empty helmet. Less
illusory than I am to myself,
athyrium fingers knead the sod
of fallen soldiers, free as ferns
to become each other's
bodies now. She is
a wellspring, a cloud
ridden by a mountain,
is snow, is rain, is loam,
and inside this, the river
of forgetfulness that flows
through an awakened worm.
Painting: John Everett Millais
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