Mexican Codex 16th Century, by Devon Balwit

Untitled, illustration from a Codex, Mexico, 16th century.

Mexican Codex 16th Century

Those with obsidian blades 
imagine the gods hungry. 

How else to justify whet-stones, 
the time spent honing 

each avid edge? That the gods 
might want nothing

cannot be thought, for that
would leave them as naked 

as any would-be lover, their cut 
flowers wilting in their hands.

Devon Balwit

This poem was written as part of the ekphrastic Halloween poetry challenge.

Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements(Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). More of her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Inflectionist; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Noble Gas Quarterly; Muse A/Journal, and more.