“… thou Lilith of the desert, thou hag, thou ghoul … naked art thou sent forth, unclad, with hair disheveled, and streaming down your back.” — part of a recovered Babylonian prayer to cast evil spirits out of one’s house.

I.
Out of sorts types of glamor of a good
death is a glamor of a good lay in
the wilderness where we once laid, for you
said it was tremendous to be that lost
gayly knowing that all that remains just
so, step out of my shallow depression.

II.
I took some vine and vined it through the glow
of her concealed, she was concealed at high
noon; you could see through her. Her glow was not
swamp flame, more blue iris, more moon flame if
the moon burned between her two dark shoulders.

III.
Spinsterhood, they called it. Torturous Tongue,
Woman’s Shame, Impure. They called it a lot
of queer and odd words. I dreamed of her owl
feet, her cat eyes and her four breasts. I dreamed
of that alien word for ecstasy.

IV.
Who could find me? She brought me a bastard’s
knife from out of the goldenrod, brought me
to a hut. She said, “arise,” and I did.
She said, “enter,” and I did deep inside
was a room full of tiny snakes all burned
to soft, small, nameless ash. Stir the coals then

V.
lie down in the field. Cut a door into
yourself and sprinkle the ash in. When it
opens a crow will caw out, over and
over. Outside jackal and hyena
will stop fighting and watch. Outside satyr
will stop singing and watch. All that moves, all
that flies, all that creeps. The sun returning
to this glamor death in the wilderness
where we laid all down now you must see that
all that remains here is a depression.
.
.
NOTE:

The Babylonian prayer I used in the beginning of the poem comes the book The Holy and the Profane (Gaster, 27)