At the Altar of Dreams

Painting by Howard Terpning

At the Altar of Dreams


A Sorrow Candle

These dreams have left me
drunk with sorrow.
I never had enough of you.
Never
licked the salt from your shoulders
or sucked the plums of darkness
between your thighs.

A Moon Candle

The moon has lost
its angelic symmetry.
I kneel and guide you
to my mouth
which orbits, laps,
around you,
the configuration
of an eclipse:
one body divining
the other.

The female candle

Sometimes I dream
about a woman lover,
her long breasts flooding
my palms with all the weight
of the secret pools
in her nipples.

The male candle

They say if you rub amber
with a cloth
it attracts electricity
and feathers
that grow into birds
cocks
that will crow the sky back
into the trees'
phallic blood
so that women can hike up
their skirts
and climb
on to their lover's fiery fingers.


Your candle

Have I released the holy birds
from your bones?
Is your midnight hair fragrant
with spices from Babylonia
or cool as Sami ice?
I would like to grind maize
between our hips,
stranger.

Anita Endrezze