Heliotrope
by Sonya Taaffe
From such heights, even angels fall
with frostburned
lips. An old tape
plays against the
wheel of the stars,
suns’ cold coronae
and the sky
starved to black,
drifting and icy,
synth and whispers,
like the turn
of cards in this
solitaire unplayed
for an aeon of
light, while I dreamed.
Or I lie, like any
gambler at home
beneath the
always-rising sun—
sleep cold, dream
less than a corpse
still thawing awake
into this stranger
who dangles from my
strings. No
snow-skinned beauty
with an apple
in her throat, no
encaustic-eyed
portrait of sweet
resin and scarabs:
mechanic’s
fingernails and ship-grey
coveralls, the
wires in my shoulder
and my bleached-out
braids grown
black in sleep;
years like lead shot
lifted finally from
my eyes. The tang
of oil in every
secondhand breath,
the irradiating
starlight, the static
the universe speaks
slowly to itself
across
constellations and dust.
The silence
coursing down my veins
like the space
between stars seeped in.
Snap another tab
inside my wrist,
lay down royalty in
hearts and spades
and that black
knave of burnings
whose sleight of
hand was dawn;
he holds me out a
lifeline, but all
the ties I want are
blazing around me,
white and
wolf-blue, red as dragons
guarding the
gardens of the west. Star
of the morning, no
sun will set on me.
About the Author:
Sonya Taaffe has a confirmed addiction to
myth, folklore, and dead languages. Her poem “Matlacihuatl’s
Gift” shared first place for the 2003 Rhysling Award, and poems
and short stories of hers have been been nominated for the
Gaylactic Spectrum Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Locus
Award, shortlisted for the SLF Fountain Award, and honorably
mentioned in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. A
respectable amount of her short fiction and poetry can be found
in Postcards from the Province of Hyphens and Singing
Innocence and Experience (Prime Books). She is currently
pursuing a Ph.D. in Classics at Yale University.
Poem © 2007 Sonya Taaffe. Image courtesy of NASA.
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