Si cor meum erat, a libro, hoc est, quomodo legere

Sea bird stew

To place fragility on a cliff edge

Is to say one thing and say something completely different

But some take the danger of a contradiction and feel solace in it

Some are grown in it and feel it in their veins

They say "take it" while knowing that no one ever will

Rome was never built in a day

Though I suppose there was the day before the last rock was laid in the last cobbled street in the last inch to be filled where one thought

What if it all fell? What would we do then?

I don't believe that one should be allowed to build cities with fear

But neither with false gods

Hold your tongue before blasphemy I'm speaking to Genesis

I speak to the naked woman in your temple

I speak to your high priestess

I speak to Sekhmet and Bastet

I speak to Persephone

I speak to Hel

I speak to Kali

I speak to Angela Davis

I speak to Mary Shelley

I ask you

Before you were so full of strength and before you were fed

How did you deal with the place of transition?

The state of limbo

Where sea birds would promise you their eggs? Only to show they would rather let them crack before giving them to you to eat?

I bow my head and I feel the rumble of the scalding lava as they erupt from below

My skin is burned

My vision is blurry

Old Gods

Forgotten Gods

Gods in their caskets

Their bones full of voodoo and rich in power

Please mothers rise

I ask again how they managed to grow?

While the birds would scorn them so

Leaving them empty of substance but full of broken promises

Child they say in many languages swirled in one

CHILD they call me

GIRL

YOUNGLING

SPAWN

SEEDLING

CUB

HATCHLING

KIN

You must eat the birds

But how?

I gurgle to them as they tower above me

I feel the heat and my thin flesh will soon abandon me

So I point to my gums

How?

They will fly to you

They are fools for they carry only flight

Their shield is only feathers and a beak

Feel their claws as light as kisses

Smell their stink of salt and ignorance

Take this for seasoning

Let them caw at you

Their flesh may soon smell sweet

Your fangs will descend and they will call you a monster by many names

Call them by one

Dinner