Prayer

I imagine that you taste
like salt and water;
I want to put my hands on you
and hear your open sounds.
Don't you want to be filled,
want to be named?
Because I have so much to give you.

Anteros--
it is you whom I worship
as the gods my parents spoke of
fade until their blurred outlines
match their indifference.
At every moment--
when I am with others,
I ignore their speech
to meditate on your face;
when I am alone,
I stretch my hands out,
searching.

Where are you?
Did you die
when I was reborn?
Or are you coming,
coming to balance the tilting easel,
to be just as empty as I am full?

The shaft of the arrow is not of gold
nor of silver,
but of the laurel tree,
the point dipped not in poison
but in ambrosia,
and I fear that I
have wounded myself
with my own bow.