Ordinary Eyes
by Ameen AnimashaunWhen the train rattled past
the House of Grace, the songs
of the forbidden shook its rims.
The sky was electric blue; the face
of the one wild serpent I see
in my dreams.
My anger
is the anger of the pack
of wolves forced to mother
a field of sheep. How frightening
is mystery? The delicious
disobedience of it all.
The woman who sat beside me
was a god and the pale child in her
arms drank from the fire in her chest.
I bit my tongue and
made a mark. This is what you did
not know: when Judith made away
with Holofernes’s head, ten more bastards
crawled out of his neck and laid siege
to the garden of bellflowers.
It was too late then,
so I looked away. Hanging
off the coach was a banner
that said know thyself, but I didn’t
want to remember the details.
I am learning to sit
with mystery: When the train
pulled to the station,
the woman reached for my hands
and dropped the child
knowingly in them. The body was still
warm to the touch. The eyes looked
like they could conquer the world.
