A Deathless Love

Were you the beast

red ochres dripping from your maw
as I conjured you to graze closer closer
fusing your shaggy horned head over my fail body
beast and hunter hunter beast?
Was it my spirit or yours
that crumbled in the heat exhausted spent
succumbing to a union so intense?

Was I the priestess you the priest

dragging a traveller’s wearied feet across desert sands
to that place where rivers meet under date palms
stripped naked fevered cold we could barely show restraint?
Was it my spirit or yours
that knelt and kissed the serpent’s languid head
and vowed we would not part again?

Was I the magus you the whore

that shared the cup of absinthe lip to lip
invoking ecstasy to breathe a demons breath
waking blind and shaken and estranged?
How did we part that day
to lose our way through London’s cobbled streets
and never meet again?

Was I the witch you the urban mage

crossing paths in corridors in bookstores or cafes
wondering where we’d met or what was that scent
of blood, of desert palms, of night’s indulgence?

Is it my spirit or yours that stills

long enough to breathe in present and past lives
and recognise the light of recognition in each others eyes?

Margaret Curtis, © 2004