there’s the neon lights and the signs of passed deities
blessing me twice in the gloom illuminating my grazed knees
shaking pillars under a temple that is nowhere to be seen
or heard in the disordered symphonies of the after hours
the screeching banshees hidden in the passing tires
and the remains of sacrificed flesh wrapped in plastic
decomposing amongst tin cans robbed of their elixir
coloring ornaments to the gaping mouth of the altar
which the saints and the hobos salute in their pilgrimage
all dressed as one they
from another mystic
walk on the edge of the halo under which I stand
their foreheads held down by invisible strings pulling from the cracks
in the cement
they do not look away as it may be
they merely do not look
and my body displayed in a bridled posture to honor Oshun
bends to offer gratitude to the meagre gift of their virtue
and the devoted disregard they bestow upon my rituals
I, priestess of the skin
whistler-sister of the pungi players from the East Indies
I, arched back and angled sesamoid heightened by needle-like obelisks
which puncture the ground in a metronomic elegy
to lure in the lustful shapes of the night
I take the scepters from the anonymous hands of my disciples
to unlatch their coffined sanctuaries and bless them in the fabrics
until they no longer are surfaces but
billowing under the scorching breath of my suspiria
they borrow the moon through its fullest circumference
then come to its splitting halves
dipped in limitless vials of perspiration and other nectars of initiation
ripe enough to consume the worship at once
[…]
Mother I have let the tide come to me
I have welcomed the bruises as beacons of your artistry
may you revert the fortunes I collect as I roam
to the green pastures of your home