For the whole we are – Candice Louisa Daquin

Out there

somewhere

all my lovers

each with a piece of me

I would ask

give them back

those crusts and half eaten slices

for the whole we are

prior to devour

feels good in the late day sun

and he comes to me

with his blackened hand

blocking out light

and muffling my mouth

beneath the stuffing of his hunger

to pluck before ripe

these crab apples small

wriggling like the worms

who rise when it rains

hearing the beat of water

hypnotic drum

I escape from his suffocate

like an eel loosed in oil

will slip and slide and

eventually vanish before your eyes

he cannot clasp me tightly

I am oil and water and brine

there is nothing of substance yet

just honey in chicory hive

we outlast the day in escape

climbing trees not yet high

raising roofs with our hide

to be at peace without

you needing to burnish your

wick on things free of

sickness

maybe there was never

a time of innocence

instinct knows the

predator even as the babe

is born in grass with

blood and gore of birth

scenting trackers

it is a lottery of minutes

rise to your feet

shaking and unsteady

follow your mother into

gathering woods

deeper where ribboned savage

shall not sharpen his sight

eclipse yielding moon shine

stay to shadows dwelt

the smell of you is enough

to drive lust into fecund earth

an anvil of evil

we spring and leap away

hoping its tarnish not stay

permenant like ink on fingers

rubbed away

there is then

no time of protection

from the moment we walk

there are eyes on us

stealing inside our vault

still, I wish for a remembered

moment

we were whole and unbroken

saved in rosy glow

of familiarity

before we grew away

from ourselves

and fragments spoke

of estrangement and

empty houses where

stranger is invited to

sup at our scarred table

such skillful stories he weaves

to splendid child

who is not yet versed

in deceptive wiles

and when she lays with him

it is the trust of

sun yet set on asylum hill

rounding out long day

for nothing is as bewitching

as the wish to believe

and in the morning

feel the marks of

deception

like rings of iron around

your trust

a splintered crown

such a silly girl

they say to your tears

this violation marks

the beginning of becoming

a woman

such as she stands

no longer pure of heart

holding her own progeny close, for soon

it will be their turn

to scatter seeds into sun

watch them grow

fitful and tall

against raining judgment

of the world