Dialogue by Wendy T. Carlisle

Shiva by Pieter Weltevrede

Dialogue

The god, hand in hand with himself, his topknot and parrot, his snakes and trident, what’s
               left of his tiger, the god who wears a necklace of privilege, and fat gold earrings in
                                                                    his impossible lobes—explain what he means to us?  

If you must wonder, consider the eyelashes.  

                                                       But aren’t they only an illusion, laid on a smooth blue cheek?  

Imagine the world in each lash then the worlds in each of those worlds how they scatter,
the lashes and the worlds, how each of us does the same, our profligate skin and hair
falling unnoticed, some portion of matter we leave to be swept up with the dust and
houseplant leaves, the rinds and tissue, with the band aid and its traces of blood. Imagine
each morsel reduced to molecules, to bits for some meat creature to breathe?

                                                                         Forget bosons, what about the god and his cobra?

The gods are our vanished mothers and fathers speaking a foreign language. We need
them translate for us, pronounce the words we sometimes think but cannot ever say.

by Wendy T. Carlisle

Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of two books, Reading Berryman to the Dog and Discount Fireworks (both Jacaranda Books). Her most recent chapbook is Persephone on the Metro, (MadHat Press, 2014.) For more information, check her website at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com.