You trace ancient symbols by candlelight, hair wild, eyes bright,
casting a salt circle littered with bones.
I enter the hallowed space as the wind howls outside,
and find anchorage in your dark eyes. Our fates intertwine in the unknown.
I yearn to create life from your rosy flesh,
to mother children woven from the strands of us—
I want to lay bare the caterwauling of the moon,
to watch your hands glide over sheaves, waiting for your desire to swell and spill over.
After our bodies meet, spilling salt and nectar,
we become conduits for those turned to ash,
those crones shamed and burned on the pyre’s tongue.
We consecrate limbs with tongue and teeth to release their words, exhume their ways.
Inventing rituals anew, we chant to release what was buried,
murmuring between sighs, rising in crescendo with each peak.
I stroke your shoulders seven times to sanctify,
You trace the curve of my hips nine times to unbind.
Like Ruth who clung to Naomi, forsaking all else, where you go, I will go.
Your people will be my people. Your home, my home.
The trees creak and groan as we call out under the watchful eye of the moon.
Our braided fingers intertwine, no longer in secret.
We share a cloak, wool against the chill wind's bite
and kiss with wild abandon around the flames.
At dawn, the salt dissolves, the wind stills—
We emerge drenched in truth, stitching together
rituals to sustain us, spinning power beyond measure.
You step into the light, and I hide no more in the shadows.