On the first night
the iconodule was my husband
and his mouth flesh
along my spine and voice
of my sacrum, holy
bone holding together
pelvis and his mouth
opens to let in air,
no prayer, I chose him
because it is right not
to care so long as
the river brims
with loess and glares,
sun’s bloody hot,
fish can’t swim any way
but belly up—
we are cruel as ashes
kept in a cruse upstairs.
I chose him because
it is right not to trawl
so long as you won’t
care for whatever might
be found in the net
raw and trembling—
on the first night
the mythomane was my husband
and his mouth flesh
along my spine and voice
of my nape, like a surgeon
specializing in the removal
of throats for those who wish
their necklaces to appear
more elegantly on the neck.
By the time we wake up
our wedding bed is big as
a mastodon alone on snow
plains swept with hands
lumbers away its limbs
and fur and our numberless years
indoors together I chose
him because the wind
blows harder now and colder
one thing’s for certain,
I know what pleases him—
clocks, silks, prickly gorse,
the bitterness of chokecherries—
and every time he
returns home, he brings
the cold in on his clothes.
Everyone who loved me
begged me not to do
the dangerous thing.
Only he would let me.
And the cold came in on his clothes.
