Soul
It is not the angel riding a goat,
trying to make him go. It does no work
with refusal or guilt, which loves
only its contorted self. But fancies instead
my terrier’s long pink tongue,
how it teases out the bone’s marrow,
tasting with all its muscle.
The angel is silver, but so is the goat
and the box on which they perch,
a Victorian gesture in the mansion
where I spent the fall. They have followed
me home, their permanent shine presuming,
while around me, everything withered,
slowly froze, and began its turn
toward white. The snow
is nothing but a great emptiness,
and I’m tired of trying to find a secret there.
But look—one leaf
skittering across the glazed surface
catches its stem to stand upright,
the shape of a hand waving.
Copyright Credit: “Soul” from White Sea by Cleopatra Mathis. Published in 2005 by Sarabande Books.
Source: White Sea (Sarabande Books, 2005)