C.S.E. Cooney

dormouse_in_tea gave me a pendant when I moved to Westerly that says, "We must learn to bear absolute paradise." I wore it the other day. It's a yellow disk, like the sun. It's like nestling daylight in the hollow of my throat. 

Now it is snowing upon my friend's rare green springtime. For her, the day was rotten.

What can one do? She is too many states away to fling one's arms around - even if we were that kind of friend, which we aren't, because we've never met. Isn't the 21st century odd? 

Yet we must do what we can. It's little enough. 

Bearing Paradise

for Olna Jenn

Moon's getting fatter
Like a lamb for the slaughter
Days getting longer
Yeah, and every year shorter
Tulip and forsythia 
Yellow as wallpaper
Torn into shreds by her fingernails

Scars at her scapulae
Where she burnt out the stumps
Blood on her mouth
Where she bit the fruit
Scorch on her brow
Where the halo fell
Coal on her tongue when she smiles 

In her right hand, the plague
In her left, a white petal 
In her right eye, a light
As red as a kiss
In her left eye, a darkness
Blinded by radiance
A curse on her lips like a hiss 

"Atlas was nothing,"
She slithers the whisper
"Nothing but vultures
And the world on his shoulder
Have you seen my belly? 
It is bursting with springtime 
You try bearing paradise 
From the cold seed of winter."