Pisces
by Daniel E. Blackston
Venus and Cupid evade the monster Typhon by disguising themselves as fish and jumping
into the Euphrates River.
1.
Graceful starlight where I wander, alone,
webbed in the holy mathematics of night ...
Fish-eye stars bleed a trillion years of light,
slanted to soak my every seeking bone.
I watch zodiac constellations flame,
and dream them blackened as in Byron's poem
slender radiances bled from Bell's theorem
to a beauty black beyond sight or name.
And the holes where the stars are not
lure me deeper than the eyes of a friend.
I bow in my body of starstuff, shot
brilliantly by unsolvable riddles
that flare my eyes skyward, like candles,
to praise the stars I'll never comprehend.
2.
I understand how the stars become fish
tonight, while cryogenic distances hue
cosmic fires that burn the way I feel for you,
clasping lonely starlight to my wish
for love, for acquisition. Sinful dish,
your body bowls the fruits of night, gives gems
of moonlit skin, so I adore what damns
senators and tribesmen -- soft, accomplished
gates to check death with loving impulse,
and I tongue all the wild constellations
spread through your arms and legs -- nothing else
claims as you claim, bone to bone, beyond pain.
In soft starlight, we breathe airless, again,
and bare our bodies to all celebrations.
Copyright © 2003, Daniel E. Blackston
Pisces, the Fish
by Johannes Hevelius
Daniel Blackston is a poet, speculative fiction writer, and critic at large. His speculative fiction stories have appeared in lively venues such as Talebones, SBD Science Fiction and Fantasy, Fiction Inferno, and IdeomancerUnbound. His poems have appeared in many journals, such as: Hiram Poetry Review, The Santa Barbara Review, Hidden Oak, Harp Strings Poetry Journal, Mid-American Review, Poetry Depth Quarterly, and others. When he's not writing, he enjoys playing folk guitar and tournament chess. You can read his bi-weekly column of short speculative fiction reviews, Firebrand Fiction Reviews, at sfreader.com, where he serves as Managing Editor. Daniel is also the Senior Speculative Fiction Editor for Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine and writes a column, "The Prose Detective", for the FMAM website. He is married and has two children: a stepson, Dylan, and a new daughter, Emily Mae.