Not a god, my god.
July 2016.
et in arcadia, ego—
and what of it? let death
take us from our haunted sleep:
we already gossip with ghosts.
if goat-footed pan is dead,
why should we aim for less?
he murmurs into our dreams:
“one is only never in the golden age.”
if that is how these things are,
then he must not have loved
selene the way i love you.
and yet, you take his leaf—
seducing the moon with secrets,
wrapped in a snowy bribe of wool.
you drew me out of the sky
disguised in a golden fleece
to keep me warm through winter.
this space is colder than your hands.
you would make a sacrifice
of your sheepskin to me, love
me through death to divine.
beneath your woolen coat, truth.
not a sheep: a shepherd.
not a shepherd: a godhead.
oh, my god. oh my god. yes.
we are in our golden age
and we both know it, golden-
lipped and honey-tongued
prosperous until death parts us.