King of Pentacles: the Builder, or Tree Trunk God
Inspired by cards from “Into the Dark Wood” Tarot deck by Sasha Graham and Abigail Larson.
He is a gift that came out of the earth, his feet tree trunks. He knew when to soft catch me / throw me so I could fly, my arms reaching for sky fruit, thinking I needed new sweetness, not just the blue gray stars pulled into my body, from his brain / human salt tried on, stayed, / sprung cicadas in chorus / approving the intertwining / outside the back deck
A spell, you are hiding your face, your secret human wrist in front of your secret human chin, I think about the movements of that wrist. I ground my fingers into them when I can, pushing the tendons, the whole apparatus of you.
Blending with the earth the builder understands the manipulation of dirt, offers flowers and bees for your trouble, the deer run, the animals arrogant at night, thinking they know you. I’d listen for foxes if I were you.
My legs don’t want to be fixed, and sometimes that comes up. though I love the trees. We crave and carve out flow and dance, shielded from the insects, the hooded girl always in my pocket, she knows what to do next.
My body lays over your branches, at times it feels like ocean armor, never still, always clumsy, noisy, treasures coming in with the tide over terrain, my body could be a veil, make it tighter, a vise grip, any apparatus.
Dream across the divide, I worry that because I thought it, danger will happen, sometimes over tuned to my imagination and false prophecies.
If I still need a talisman, an altar, a protection spell, when I have this part centaur energy being, the smooth stones too smooth now / the blue bat, tiny white fangs not getting blood / giving not getting
I write you into a poem to protect you, seal you in paper, your torso, fingertips in letters forever. You stand on the page, grow upward, dive off the edge of a sentence, into the blue above, a kite freed.
