Selene
1ST PLACE, KEATS-SHELLEY HOUSE POETRY CONTEST, 2019
Leila El-Zabri, Grade 11
The ephemeral lullaby of the moonshine,
My huckleberry friend;
The stroke of metal on metal is a sharp twist.
Quiet, it is all quiet, be quiet! You bathe in the silence.
You bathe in the expanse of billowing melodies,
And the barks resonate. It is no longer silent, but it wasn’t before either.
Your breath was loud.
- •
The crescent is riddled with lines,
Unfolding, mocking Dedalus’s efforts. It is a beating heart,
An elegant howl, a Mother of Pearl cocooning Venus in her whole, womanly figure.
The face of wisdom reflects upon a shard of heart
And she draws courage from it; a stray soul sucking the luscious
blood from the fabled horse.
She thinks she will paint her body with it.
- ••
Magia della Luna:
He calls her, she turns.
He sees a woman at night, she is reaching for the moon.
Her body cradles the stampeding beat of the bull-skin drums,
The feathers on the drumsticks sweep across the raw planes.
The jade slips through her hair, the silk flares onto the threaded wood
Of the basket of the womb of the woman-
The naked power that she encloses.
- •••
The tang of shrill metal.
You could carve the jagged patterns into the moon with your tongue.
The incense is swallowed with Sweet Medicine,
Myrrh, cedar, lavender melded with echoing sage.
——
North-Star Flower Woman watches over her,
A mother to the moon. Her petals unfurl in protection of the bare life
she guards, but the purity of her love is new.
Love, what love? She gives nothing less.
