I Heard of Hermes

Approaching The Cup

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I heard of Hermes from books

Tossed across fault lines, from man

To boy. From voices strained

On the stage, to the complacent ink.

Through widening ruins, fathering centuries,

A trickery passed down

In luxurious wardrobes.

But I have scaled these lips,

And these. And have traced centuries also

Through this willful terrain. A speechlessness

Wrapped in what a thousand pregnant mothers bring.

I learn the day from this newest breath. From daughter

To daughter, across the unbreakable lines of shadows,

Your body echoes mine.