Life of the Goddess

Life of the Goddess

Perhaps your body was not a body at all

but an ectoplasmic layer of celestial-skin

over bones light and hollow, like a bird’s,

and perhaps

you watched those first bodies crawl

from the ocean that was the world to the first

green places. Perhaps they were pink and soft,

buoyed up on the tongues of great oysters

nestled like pearls.

Perhaps you saw them break like brittle

shells, white bones sharp and delicate

pushing through skin and sinew, painted red,

and you showed yourself to them, so that you

too could feel, could be.

Perhaps they carved your likeness in marble,

perhaps they fashioned it from the cleaned carcasses

of their kills.  When they gave their children to you

run through with swords of bronze and steel,

perhaps you grew stronger, and wished you had not.

When they forgot your name, forgot

to re-christen you, forgot the stories and the idols,

the crumbling remnants of your image, perhaps

you returned to the ocean they once crawled from

and let yourself be carried off, white foam on the water.