Siren Song if I were piano keys I would like black
and white
and still.
breathe I would not 'til you had lain one precious hand
on the spine of the curve of my lip and pushed -
setting off deep vibrations resonating
and strumming
and humming
and floating on air waves too thin to see or feel as they crest
and crash on the shores of the delicate shell slip of your ear.

if I were a cello I would stand upright
gracefully arched neck
sleek back
and full belly round with pregnant
pause and expectation, strings
taunt tauntingly close to air vibrating with the scent of your
sworl textured fingertips -
achingly ripe to be sung closed eyes and husky by your bow.

if I were me (this body of flesh
and blood
and bone
and tendon)

yes if it were me that was me I would twirl my hair and
poke my tongue out at darkened corners too afraid to
meet any eye -
yours or mine -
and standing pidgeon-toed with a lollipop in my schoolgirl mouth
I would dream of kissing you with
a woman's passion
a courtesan's practice
a baby's sweetness

'til, half mad with the drunken essence of a slaughtered idea,
I would run down the corridors of fantasy
bleeding torpid green sap, taking root slowly and nakedly in the bed
of your smile
and whisper in a last barkless bite
i love you.

Veronica Susan Zito



Hollow Hills

That evening a hard salt wind blew up off the ocean, making the heather whistle and murmur. It blew the fresh blood stiff on warrior faces, blew the smell of death from the bodies of the slain. The sky shone a luminous, transparent purple, like the skin of a fresh wine grape. Dragon-crested shields glinted in the dying light; the mottled colors of the other tribes rested in shadows.

He had won, against all odds, he had won. The Pendragon banner snapped with the wind, untouched. His soldiers slept the dreamless sleep of heroes, sprawled in their armor on the harsh grass of the northern plain. The wind tangled sandy hair across his vision as his eyes thirstily drank in the twilight, soaking in the meadow and the ocean. Weariness and victory tugged at his limbs; the ocean and sky danced giddily in his eyes. When the fading light was at last absorbed into the upward curve of the dusk, he staggered back to his tent.

She watched his coming with a fierce protectiveness, relighting the candles that had burned low. He parted the canvas lips of the tent, coming closer into the thin circle of flickering candle flame. She saw the blood by his eyes and his mouth, and her heart twisted. Like crimson runes were his wounds, scrawled on his magnificent face, inscrutable, that would dim into thin white scars with the passage of years. But she would not give him that time. She seemed to him ancient and mysterious, hair black like ravens or a moonless night. He held her dark eyes with his own, felt something beat in the air between them.

Unexpectedly, he straightened before her, as he had stood before the vast indigo darkness of the coming night. He stood so young and free in front of her that her blood sang in her veins like the sea. Other men, on other nights, would never be to her what he was: her brother, her only match in splendor. Drawing near to one another felt like coming home, like a terrible awesome joy. Two wicks on the same candle, their eyes blazed, consuming twice as quickly all the other had to give. How long could they both remain whole? Pulled to her by something stronger than his own will, he felt himself go to his knees before her.

When he dropped his sword into the carpets at her feet, he felt as if his arm were cut in two and he had forgotten how to use his fingers. She laughed, lilting and tragic like the calls of sea birds. "Ever a warrior," she whispered to him, taking his hand and reteaching his fingers how to move.

His voice stuck in his throat. With the battle-strength he had just learned, he held her to his shoulder, smelled the fern-sweetness of her hair. If he had knows his sister as she lay beside him, he would not have moved as he did. He would not put on that knowledge, though, no matter how deeply he searched.

They moved together like birds in flight. In the midst of her tempest, it anchored, the tiny grain of ache that would grate and grate until she pushed it from herself and held her boy-child to the world. That boy-child who would carry her brother's doom in his hands.

The candle burned to a molten lump, then flickered out. Sliding into darkness in the wake of another flood of passion, he whispered her name, as he would never whisper another's. "Morgaine . . ."

Watching his mouth curve around the shape of her name, she blinked to stop salt tears from forming. Everyone must die, some time, death inexorable like the pull of the tide. The sides of the tent strained against the night wind and they slept to the rough music of the ocean.

Joy K. Hoffman



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