We were unpeeled mandarin. 
We were waters, cool and full of fishes. 
We were forest dirt. Singing. Beatle feasted fox fur.
We were Candlemas.
We were pilgrimage. 
Our lace went on for miles. 
Our mud was thick with herbs. 
Our herbs were pungent and coated our bodies. Coated our children’s bodies. 
We had red coral around our indelicate necks. 
Our lips have always been painted. 
Our sex has always been saleable. 

We were holding up the altar in the center of the town for centuries without so much as a thank
you, holy burden born in service of centrifugal fire, unmatched in ritual conflagration, the
wheels of stone we kept turning, the bread we baked in our bellies. 

The dagger that sliced flesh with crumb.

Our ribbons yanked from our hair. 
Our water deferred. To here. To here. To here. 
Our mud unpasted. 
Our herbs blanded. 
Our fruit picked clean to the stone.
Our coral scrubbed raw upon our necks.

The heat at the center of the earth threaded through tunnels to touch its bloomed statues and
blacken their eyes, small sharp legs were scattered through every stone in the citadel, calendula
listened in through window gaps and reported back by tap root. Silence.

Our scythes rejoiced in singing.

Now our lace has noosed the enemy. 
Now our necklaces are on our children.  
Now our hair is queerly fingered. 
Now our painted lips are on each others’ knees. 
Now our rituals expose gods and clot mud. 

In Naples the ground shakes with our coming. 
On Crete we are climbing in and out of the sea.