Lift my chin, Lord,
Say to me,
“You are not who
You feared to be,
Not Hecate, quite,
With howling sound,
Torch held upright,
Black acolyte
Gone underground.
Not consort to
Persephone,
Not Queen of Night
Who, hurling through
The highest blue
Of blessed airs
Your gruesome prayers,
Hit Heaven’s Queen—
A crone, crone of the unforeseen.
Not chthonic-skinned
And triple-tongued,
And lunar-lung’d.
Lift my chin, Lord,
Let me mend—
A mother to the damned,
A friend
Pledged to the dead,
Daughter adored
By those abhorred,
Grown through the grave. Lord,
Lift my head.
—Jennifer Reeser
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Asters
The asters bloom amid late-summer heat,Low-lying stars that will not linger longAnd bend their sprays beneath the…
To Live Fittingly
Why do the humanities face such a hostile climate? In part it’s because academics have excluded ordinary,…
Early Arrival
Last year we laid squares of sodDown in our bare yard. At first,Pale, slender spears grew tall…
