THE SON - POEM

I closed her eyes.
I saw a sole once on a block of green marble.
It was flung straight from the living brine, its pupils were bright with a strange heat.
I watched a cat eat it alive.

When I touched her cheek, the light failed.
When I moved my open hand on her lips, there was no life there.
She smelled of the cheap soap we had washed her in.
I saw the black hollows below her eyes where desire swam.
I called her name in the dark, by no-one answered.
There was only the sap rising.
I though of the clotted mercury in the broken thermometer of her body.

It rose again in my head to a silver column, a sword of blood in the sun.
I held to its cross of fire in a dream of climbing.
I swam in the air: my wings were extended into the night.
I was borne above the clouds:
I flew at increasing speeds, to increading altitudes.
There was only the sun above me.
I was the sun.
The world was my mother, I spread my wings to protect her growth.
She broke into wheat and apples beneath my rain.
I came my fire to the sea, to the earth from the air, to the broken ground with my fresh seed.