The First Crack
The first crack
always seems easy to mend,
an almost invisible fracture in
an otherwise perfect thing; so, too,
the first pock on the face of the moon.
Yet let a few years pass and her skin
is a ballgown of craters.
So I knew when the peacocks
cracked November with their
idiot's scream, when you spit the last
blackberry from your stained lips, that the
first bleach of sun on Rhea's hair
would turn your head,
make you thirsty
for the black cup of ocean, the yellow
manes of lionesses blowing on the sand,
the kelp smell and the wind-draggled lillies,
leaving me alone in this Pharisee's garden
with nothing but a raddled moon
and the smugness of
peacocks.
November 2021
posted for Shay's
Rhea was a Titaness, a goddess, daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, the consort of Cronos and mother of Zeus, as well as grandmother of Persephone and Dionysus.
Images: Lunar Craterr, 2015, ©Æstronomær shared under a Creative Commons License
Peacock Consorts, © Charles Tunnecliffe Fair Use
