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BloodsuckerDeath
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Embracing the bloodsucker
in naked sand, in the element
of rain and stormy skies.
Loving the bloodsucker for a moment
and then living within its inevitable stride.
A year of midnight, a cocoon to peer through,
but still the air is not my own.
Sleeping beside its warm and ruthless tummy,
who knows what the shadow beholds – the scythe,
the splitting apart, the lungs that find no breath.
I cared for your children,
I wrapped them like a necklace around my throat and
they taught me the infinite expressions of grief.
I was once a lake. I am now a dried-up pond.
The sweat is the seed, is the missing piece
that gives grace to every smile. Hunt me
no more, reveal to me the final plateau.
Loss and beautiful corpses, and still beyond
November’s soil, you have revealed the ways
of indestructible love. For that I am grateful.
For love not you is absolute. This milestone you have given
has become my ship – now leave me to flow away
from the weight of this mourning.
Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst
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Published in “The Stray Branch Fall/Winter 2016” October 2016
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.