Adulterous Women
we stopped being before we became, our love suspended
against the city walls. one strong rain will dissolve us.
we have had our softness sucked hard by
monstrosity in our own likeness.
we wear our horror like animal skin.
in another age, we would feast on locust and honeycomb,
her fingers sweetmeats between my teeth.
in this life, in the next, we are ordinary.
I wear her presence around me like camelhair
and prophesy her coming.
my prophesies foretell bad endings,
the gaining and losing of heads.
I imagine her back smells of cedar, her mouth like monsoon:
“O false prophet,” she whispers,
“I love you enough to kill you.”
she cannot commit sins with only stones.
sin requires flesh, sweetness dripping like honey
from pink melons and honeycombs.
when she leaves, I cease being.
I cry alone in the wilderness
for forty days and nights.
starving, I swallow the wings of insects: sweet as the
slick flesh between her thighs
Emmanuelle Christie was raised in British Columbia and lives in Toronto. They hold a degree in literature and study theology at the University of Toronto. Their work is forthcoming in Acta Victoriana.
