Tapestry

When it’s all over,

when naked birds with little teeth

have drunk their last from

the saucers of our hips,

whittled thin by the rains

of the dying world, will it matter

what you did to me,

what I did to you?

We are now

no more separate than 

moonlight from sun.

Intermingled hopelessly in

the slow slough of decay.

All our old deeds—whetted each on the other—

we have done over to ourselves,

passed them back and forth between us

like wedding wine, many times,

a doomed cat’s cradle,

a recursive web of widening lies.

We have long since agreed

never to look beneath.

But we feel it. Against the tips of our fingers,

congealing on the dark

underbelly of our hate.

The shapely glimmer of lives left unlived,

of what we gave up that quiet day

when we yoked ourselves to death.

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Marisa Celeste Montany was born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, splitting time between Ka‘u and Kona. After spending her twenties as a professional ballet dancer, she attended Middle Tennessee State University where she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in history and English. She currently resides in Maryland with her husband where she takes walks, studies herbs, reads books, and writes speculative fiction and poetry. You can find her most recent publications at The Orange & Bee and Crow and Cross Keys. Visit her at marisamontany.com. She loves horizons.