Rosary (Prayer One)

By J. Michael Martinez
Wherein she martyrs the mirror:
                  this carnival of stone,
                  her lips dilate
                  the negation—space into starpoint
 
Wherein she, to be both sacrum & wrist—
                  neither the fugitive epidermis,
                  nor the unlocked ashblack—
                  sovereigns the shadow swell as love
 
Wherein she ardors the emptiness open,
                  proof the unanchored
                  Spirit of my silence,
                  her revisions clothing my brightest orgasm—
 
Wherein she says, I can hear you,
                  the seed under the belly’s flesh—love the far shore, 
                  she says, For She withdraws the Spring wild
                 
                  Thrust in her mother’s surrender,
                  iron ocean blackened to aurora.
 

Copyright Credit: J. Michael Martinez, "Rosary (Prayer One)." Copyright © 2016 by J. Michael Martinez. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2016)