Thursday poetry, 5/7 “Delight and the Word”

To keep my brain nimble and, um, creative, I’ve decided to start a Thursday poetry tradition here. I can’t promise the poetry will be awesome, or inspiring, or even good. But once upon a time I fancied myself a bit of a bard. So, here goes.

Delight and the Word

Delight and the Word met in a fever dance
under the shadow of the ship’s mainsail–
the creak of weathered wood and the hum of the engines
played counterpoint.

When the Word’s mouth opened, all was
softness and breath, the hushed moist maw of
the Beginning and End.

But Delight was wilder and her hands were fleur de sel;
her eyes stood out like marbles of joy in her mottled face.
And it was she who began, pulling apart the Word’s
mouth with her hard, delicate fingers and pressing down
on the prow of the ship, frenzied and shaking.
Her rough fingers traced
glittering trails down the Word’s spine,
and each shuddered in turn.

Though they both felt the
wood give way beneath them, it was only the Word who
cried out–for it was then she knew that the ship was Pain.

And Pain was everything.
Delight punched through Pain’s rumbling engine,
ripped at the hoses and belts, and the Word wept
as gasoline flowed through her lips, down her throat.
Pain had come.

The Word plunged beneath the ship while Delight struggled
above, tearing Pain apart chunk by chunk;
metal and plank, rope and tattered cloth.
The Word watched with bubble eyes as
the swirl of Pain and Delight churned the waters.

The Word waited. She breathed a whirlpool
and spoke: “I am. I am. I am.”

And when Delight sank lifeless into the
depths below her, the Word loosed a single word:
Delight shattered–she refracted, diluted, dissolved into
a billion grains of sand and salt–and was whisked away.