The Queen Unmasked
Remember that queen that found her beauty bundled tightly in a carpet? Venice is a strange place, whenever I hear it I think: masks! But it is not disguise that walks plain here, no, Venice is a habitat of bridges. Remember that queen folded in cloth. Cross a bridge, link two worlds; stand on a bridge when the moon goes up and be wedded to her; travel beneath bridges to the rivers of the underworld. Remember the seductress woken as the carpet tumbled. Give me journeys! I called to the Fates in prayer but journeys are not for giving, they need to be taken, won, wanted like wings want wind and air. I sat like dreaming in the boat when the bow broke water like friends break bread passing beneath a thirteenth bridge. Remember the queen that won eternity breathing through the thickness of this fabric. Here is the darkness where apples grow red, and here is the light that feeds the dead; unroll the reality of me on the soil of this new, this oldest of old lands. All dreams are shadows here, dead before they were born into reality, all reality casts a shadow here, an afterimage of itself. The sky is diamondstrewn and moonbare, sunbarren. I am found, the carpet fallen like clouds around me.
December 29th, 2015