I called her down in a dream—Old Aphrodite—
she looked at me with a tender pity,
raising my chin to meet her gaze, stroking my
cheek with her thumb—she had her eyes—
asking, “What is it now? What wacky wish
is your wacky little heart wanting now most?”
And there are a million things I want more than
there is water in the sea but I know I have a
desire that outpaces my little animal heart and
thinking about her, it is so effortless to be so
soft and so lovely. I’ve been clenching my jaw
so long and with such pressure that it
must always be moments from popping
right off at its hinges; in her arms, I notice
how I’ve been tensing every single muscle in my
wacky little body for so incomprehensibly long.
“I want my hand in hers, to kiss her, to fuck her,
to fall asleep with her. I want to be close to her.
I want to not have a single worry that maybe
I’m asking too much of her. I want to lounge
in her arms and I want her hands to trace the
silly little noisy animal of my ribcage, for her to
feel my silly little heartbeat and the silly little
contractions of my lungs, to know me.”
Aphrodite was quiet, but she craned her head
down, down, down her hair showering
all atop me, and placed her forehead to mine.
Perhaps I could cry. “What a lovely,
wacky little wish you ask of me.”
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Yasha de la Luna (she/her) is a poet, artist, actor, director, singer-songwriter, archivist, fencer, Pushcart Prize nominee, and all-around general enthusiast. You can find her work in Fjords Review and South Florida Poetry Journal. Follow her on social media @weirdtwink.
