by Amy Bobeda

my summer wheat will brown soon
first in many years, will
fall off the ground and die soon
disentangle from the anglo-europa

​

they say inanna was raped
but not raped per-say
another word

like lunar culture attempts
to rename the primitive
people who know more than we — 

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another word, he was the gardener
neighbor, un suspect in time
of circumscription

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old man joe relieved himself in the orchard
too hard to hobble back inside
baggy levis hiding the distinction of
thighs

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the distinction of our orifices hide
another word
unconscious pillaging our whore
who is our virgin
is this from gilgamesh he asks?
our mother
our maiden

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no inanna is another myth, she says
our crone, burned the last white taper
on Christmas eve, trilogy
illuminates the crevice
crowns 

​

 the eyes illuminate

 she says dreams are too sacred
to ignore
he says he sleeps dead, corpse pose
the ultimate meditation 

loses track wakes in darkness
sleeps in late afternoon sun
when pink marries green just
beyond the skyline

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a mountain, a mound, the origin of
cunt until another word
bore consciousness,

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unyielding flesh and breath remain

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how do you spell it? he asks
I N A N N A,  she says

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all I needed was a woman to show me
how to eat
feed myself Mary
all I ever needed was a woman to teach me 

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how to not eat myself
barley, myself grain, wine stains
moons of my thumbnails like
Inanna stains the water, blood

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to avenge the gardener? we ask
or grow the wheat at last
from the roots, he tore in a fit
of abject defiance

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to manifest destiny beyond his future — the toddler
piddles on the haystack, turns the snow
straw, melts himself into himself
grizzled, greying at the temples, receding
in all the places gravity objects

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a ball of clay, glows the desert sun
rains slip, another
white plaster cast,

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forget about the blood, he says twenty
days akin to twenty thousand yearnings
for generation skins

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two halves apart
relief— a birth of adam.