A Deer Priestess is standing on the sea, and
I watch as she coaxes jellyfish from the ocean,
to sing songs of oscillating neutrinos that crackle
and fizz with insatiable longing
to knit universes together from this briny sea.
Helios wanders across the sky, his sun-disk
neatly tucked into his chariot, smoking a cigar.
Text fades and re-forms across the sky
and the sky starts to peel,
and words fall into my body and my body is text.
I edge closer to the stage,
yet I’m afraid of the sea, of the deep.
I don’t know what it means.
A dolphin swims below, outlined by inky black,
ready to leap. “Come,” says the Deer Priestess,
beckoning. I hear a steady da-dum, da-dum,
realise it’s my heartbeat. Death shuffles
past — I think he’s in the wrong play.
The Cheshire Cat appears and disappears,
leaving only his grin flecked with froth from waves
that flick and lick and I can taste the salt from
the spray. I teeter on the edge and time dissolves
into a myriad tiny suns.
“Get on with it!” someone shouts from the audience
behind me. “What does it mean?!” I shout back, but the
words fall from my mouth in paper fragments, as
Kafka floats by, atop a beetle.
The Deer Priestess is closer now and I realise that she is me.
Upon waking, I watch as my reflection,
shapeshift, dances, into the sea.
Dec 7, 2024
Dec 7, 2024 at 7:31 PM UTC