Walking on Water

by Sheikha A.

                                                          art above and below by Drew Roulette

She is coiled to a tree by the body
of a snake's. He sings to her like
a man that wears his hair as a turban;
their union is almost prophetic:
the snake is the color of hallow
day, red-deep as feldspar in boiling
paint. She has begun to gasp for
life within crushing lungs; leaves course
like vines across her forehead. Its nose
melts. Abruptly, she snaps free. Her feet
find water in a field of fruit-barren trees.
The river is familiar lines; his body
horizontal under the rippling surface;
arms breaking out like branches, first
in sets of dual eternalizing, then slowly
dividing, until each limb becomes a
pronounced immortality. Moving
rapidly, like waterfalls gliding to
embrace concrete mirrors, svelte in
planting gentle feet, careful not to
waken the sleep-susurring of his limbs,
she walks over the surface, snakes floating
underneath. There is singing blowing
in like an echo: his turban-hair hissing
as flutes of god slither out
of her temples—

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Absinthia 
by KA Opperman

 
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