by David Allen Sullivan
A tree rose up her back,
wolves coursed over one shoulder.
It was her body
they decorated
but their sinewy life, emerging
from the white tank top
and black bra straps, called
to me. She was a stranger
hurrying past where
I’d been cursing fate,
how could I halt her fleeing form
and ask to see more?
But wolves seemed to wink
and roll as her shoulders walked
them through their paces,
and the tree stretched up
her neck to tickle her ears
with barren branches.
I have seen tattoos,
this was the finest—artwork
that would only be
completed when she
was naked—the harrowed wolves
bounded for their gate,
and when they were gone
I turned back to the monitor—
delayed an hour.
*
Didn’t recognize
her at first, because the man
who she leaned against
was a wild, walking
contradiction—marine cap
rode her red spiked hair,
and over his close cropped
skull entwined snakes were dancing.
The hand that caressed
the shouldered wolf said:
as above, around the wrist,
its twin: so below.
And the tree walked on
legs that wore bracelets of roots
on exposed ankles.
Those roots stretched themselves
as she stretched herself, caressed
snakes and ate him up.
*Photo courtesy Drew.
Tags: Raja Sekar, santhi, vinoth
