no title given

*Sataplia is a small cave in Georgia known for its numerous fossilized dinosaur footprints -poem reflects my interest in Tamar of Georgia, who was then later canonized�she seems to have been a very interesting person, but from the cold impersonal bits of

 

The snow begins to cover the dinosaurs’ path

penetrating the dark of Sataplia*

She can hear the basilica’s ringing

It has been many winters since twenty four

Her body seems a different country now

An icon that will later map others’ prayers

But here, inside the brass heartbeat she is only herself

Unnerved by the sensation of skin, nails, hair

The bones that gnaw at the outer covering

Itchy for some release that doesn’t require an assigned protocol of

wife, mother, warrior queen

beside the stalagmites, and the cold chandeliers she allows herself the seriously humane descent with great long breaths as if it were not a shift of mind,

but a marathon of spirit as well and

there he is, steadfast

her hold on the temporal

her base, her scent, the sheet that winds her body when night camps in

her lover, her friend, her argument, her last will and testament

consort by consent ….