not the darkness that you seek, but the sun that you need

inspired by Woman with Girdle by Anne Sexton.

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not the darkness that you seek, but the sun that you need

your hills are white capped, like ski mountains, alp mountains, just above the maritime line;
snowy white, and long veined like elephant horn, curled inwards and upwards.
your skin is malleable dough to be smoothed and molded by the motion of the rolling pin,
pressured and pulled, only to rise and form from the heat of some oven. you have
bone planes, a mass of interconnected rods and cones that make up the sight of you, the color of
milk and marrow, and soft like goose-feathers, gull-feathers, cloud-covered crow feathers.

you have been trapped in that city under the sea for so long you have learned to breathe through
blow-holes and cracks in preformed glass—beer bottle shaped and emerald green. and like Atlantis
remain mythic and hidden and lost, your language misunderstood and misquoted in all the world’s
dreams.