Thaw

I can feel Helios approaching.

Sometimes slowly, gently easing me up

through the earth, sometimes barging into our bed with his chariot and team.

I can always tell when Mother sends him.

All of those beautiful dormant roots languidly coming to life, fresh tendrils snaking above and below, reminding me to love him hard, so I can feel him in the summer heat, when I close my eyes

In Mother’s presence.

She knows.

Hermes knows.

Helios knows.

Only Zeus and the dumb mortals believe the lie. Why can’t she set us all free?

The flower-drunk mortals could bathe in petals all the year long

If she would just release me

From her suffocating love.

His love lets me breathe, removes my need for air, water, all those earthly things.

Except pomegranates.

I love peeling away the burnished husk, the nest of jewels beneath, waiting to be

drawn out of the web,

Onto my tongue, delicate skin bursting

Into tart juiciness against the roof of my mouth before flowing sweetly

down my throat. Tiny gems to be relished and savored. Like him.

Oh, there’s so much to tend,

Beneath and above the earth.

Everything under the earth

depends on him.

Everything under the sun

depends on me.

Our world is just for us, decadence envelops us, takes us so far away,

deep into the jasmine of night,

Ylang ylanging

Until we must sacrifice

the secret quiet moments, eyes melting,

Melding.

For them, we evacuate paradise.

Even the midsummer heat, magnolias, lilies, roses, zinnias bursting everywhere,

Cannot block the winter nights,

the black celebration, the lust burning through the questions inside me

while I abandon myself

to his touch.

His touch, his touch. . .

Nothing in this absurdly floral world

dares to compare,

Hydrangeas, daffodils, azaleas, morning glories, and gardenias are nothing.

The pure sensation of his fire in my water, the heavenly steam of our union.

Oh, I want to stay.

My mother, the goddess of the harvest,

pulls me up from the earth, just another

flower to be plucked.

I suffer the delphinium, gladiolus, orchid, and rhododendron shrouding

our secret rooms

Where he lives inside me.

She could visit me here.