Rebecca Jordan
I love the earth
So she said,
Hear my heartbeat.
I press chest and cheek to soft
impressionable
musky soil, millions of moments in the making.
This is not the earth’s heart,
but mine,
thudding against it.
Yes, but that’s what a first-tried lover would say,
reflecting in sweat-dampened sheets,
reveling in his own flesh.
I still feel my own heart.
Give it to me.
Give? It is the only thing of mine I have. Do not take it from me.
Give it to me.
Sunlight is not allowed here,
jealous sentries of trees letting it through when it suits them.
Perfume of rotting decay is welcome here,
where things grow out of it.
Cool, moist earth soaks into my skin, damp and worm,
but even that is not mine.
I only have my heart,
not even a sound
to ground me
but the vague recollection that somewhere nearby
there must be water using the land as a
private temple.
-
-
I have given her my heart without knowing it,
as I lay between
soft mounds of earth like thighs,
between awake and asleep.
This is all I know.
I have given her my heart.
I hear her heart in me and around me, like she promised.
The promise of life persists,
amongst other promises she does not care to make,
amongst promises she refuses to give or breaks.
It is a slow primal beat,
with days,
months.
decades
between.
Decay between.
Her limbs find home on me.
Tickle of flies’ legs that lay their eggs on me,
Brush of cold nose
like polished stone
or whiskers searching for sustenance in me,
Grass and fungus
stretching
and moaning
possessively
thrillingly thrilled
around me
like blood
or flesh.
Her heart roots me, for I no longer have my own, and
I need
something to beat.
When they find me
let them say
The Earth has swallowed me whole.
