gnawing

at my lapel, you beg for me to stay

you push me further onto the pavement on Lexington
and your hot breath

glistens on my neck.
“you’ve changed,” I say,
as your eyes lose colour and hair sprouts behind your eyes

I used to sit on your chest and
paint your body with my favourite

colour
and you would carry me on your back
so my feet wouldn’t be wet when it rained

but since the full moon
you hover above me while I sleep
and your hairy

hands feel foreign on my body

and here, on Lexington, my new silk dress is ruined

no more thrashing
no more howling
no more public indecency on 29th and 9th

“you’ve changed,” I say,
as I heave you off me
and grab my bag off the floor

Today's name chosen for you, my love, is Saulė. Do you like its sound? She is Goddess of Sun, from where my people come. Where she is protector of orphans, where she casts warmth, where an enormous smith made and threw her. Call me Mėnuo if you will, as I am just a moon, circling the orphaned Earth. Our marriage is destined, and my light is yours, a reflection of your solar pulses. These legends have it, many a mix up between us. Stories do go that way. There is a shadow on me. It grows. Eventually, splits me in half. Then, you watch as I disappear. Yet, I  return and grow again in your light, giving guidance to orphans traveling by night. This is the Zodiac's grand command and as we spin about, time, other orbs and Universalist theory melds. A marriage of millennium is at hand and our master smith, with his hard hammer,  keeps the sparks flying. New stars and galaxies emerge, and shouldn't they? Seems the story just keeps getting better.

The selkie sits on solemn sands,
Her hair a curtain wet.
She sings her songs of splendid seas -
A shining silhouette.

Her lily coat lies loosely strung,
Her shoulders slim and white,
She sighs with sounds of salty spray;
A voice of naught and night.

The nightjar is not what you
keep the night in.

This is a truth,
a bird that flys solo across the roof of the world
cannot be held in the confines of glass,
the clattering, chattering sounds will pass and
then peace will ensue
would you
want to
bottle that?

each schoolboy used to know the saw
laid deep in tracts of Danish lore

Forkbeards pious son and heir
Cnut the great, konungr,

his throne set to the boiling awe
somewhere along a Hampshire shore

but was it somewhat further north
he faced down scorned Ægir’s bore

his person kissed by Trisantona
upon her banks at Gainsborough