Kissed
Charles A. Gramlich
In the dry wend of a lost river,
sotted with visions,
I lie peyote-kissed.
This world is bejeweled,
texture rich,
full of strange harmonics.
A congress of cacti filibuster the owls.
Siroccos play a threnody with
dust and skulls.
I am visited by a horned toad
who winks upon my chest,
his eyes stigmata that drip
red-red blood.
Garish is that rheum,
alive like a totem animal.
It tastes of altars, worship,
and sacrifice.
Lying in a river that isn’t wet,
lips dry and cracked as nitre,
I am glare sighted.
The blue beyond has turned to purple.
It spills like rain,
buries me in clots of color.
The sun is sewn into the sky,
a yellow impossibility,
the yolk of a world-mother’s egg.
It births a Rorschach cloud,
filled with a holy shine
that melts into the face of god.
Soft the hair that fingers my face.
Sharp the sand that makes my bed.
Sweet the wind that suckles my sweat.
For the first time in hours,
I breathe.
