The Sphinx at Night
Meg Smith
Giza, March 2006
I
fell, a
sprinkling of gold leaves,
and
I know myself
now.
I
walked about the
walls of my city.
It
was good to
laugh beneath
the
strings of
lights, and green towers,
amid
prayers, and
blue clouds.
Every
street
opened to me, like veins
of
ripe plums, and
I breathed in
the
taste, and
sighed.
I
walk toward you,
still,
filled
with
something whole,
until
the sky
fades to amber,
and
only my dream
of fire,
fever,
knowing,
wakes
in
the desert
tide.
Amphibious Mundi
Meg Smith
Someone
has to
count them,
their
pearls of
egg mass,
shimmering,
and
not yet knowing,
as
they return to
a pool
now
marked by a
rusting pillar.
Someone
has to
reach them,
a
finger to their
fingers,
as
the sun slashes
across
the
tide of noon,
sweeping
all
silvery drops.
Soon,
they take
space,
in
low music,
and
fill us, as
with stones.
But
they will
remain, counted,
as
the green of
their heaven
fills
with rain.
A Family Constellation
Meg Smith
I
released them
both the same way --
no
flash-flood, no
starburst --
the
quiet of dim
rooms, in poetry I summoned
within
the dark
space.
Now,
their light
fuses
within
its own
furnace.
And,
I, atoms and
dust,
wrote
life large
in my belly;
now,
birth runs,
undone.
I
wrote you from
every book,
and
wore my sorrows
in
a gold ring.
The
cosmos falls
backward;
the
cave opens
itself once more.
Sing, Summer Demon
Meg Smith
I'm
dancing in
blue flames.
The
ferns and
vines gather,
weaving
and
snaking the shade.
We
must all build,
like
a moss gate,
a circle of stones.
Only
then we will
keep
the
roof of the
sky from shattering,
from
crying out in
the midst of our song.
Straw Maidens
Meg Smith
We
stand, broom to
broom,
our
shadows drawn
long.
The
air crackles.
The wind sighs,
and
the torch
falls. The flame tears,
like
a ragged hem,
and no cry goes up. Remember us,
all
we have given.
You
stand strong,
and eat, and dream
in
our fortress of
ash.
Meg Smith is a writer, journalist, dancer and events producer
living in Lowell, Mass.
In addition to previously appearing in Black Petals, her poetry
has appeared in The Cafe Review, Pudding,
Poetry Bay, The Horror Zine, Bewildering Stories, Strange Horizons, Dreams
& Nightmares, The Dwarf Stars anthology of the Science Fiction and Fantasy
Poetry Association, and many more.
She is the author of five poetry books, and her first collection
of short fiction, The Plague Confessor,
is due out in fall 2020. She welcomes visits to megsmithwriter.com.
