two miles away from you may your lover tremble with excitement,
one mile away may he bite his lip in anticipation
I would have journeyed to him unbidden,
my path from the temple fated and traced
by sandaled feet, dusty but still eager
in their purpose, the way we find our gods
what lives in him would find a way to spark
the fuse that drives and draws me here,
beside the spring where he comes to drink
to lie down, naked and spread under sky,
ready, open for the man who runs with deer
because I have an appetite for gods
or the man ridden by them, still smelling
of the clay that shaped him, struck with sunlight;
a man with hair longer than my own,
whose kisses taste like wild grass
I am the one who opens and is taken
but when he lets me stand again and turns
back to the deer, they will no longer know him
and I will cut his hair, because love tames–
how many wild men are broken
by the women who lie under
***Italicized words are from Enkidu’s blessing to Shamhat, from the epic of Gilgamesh, via Stephen Miller.
Susan Daniels Poetry 