.

      muted so as not to distract from my singular mission:

      29to sustain my love with cakes

      and protect the embers of his precious light.

      30Or perhaps I am just sick with love

      and this fever keeps my feet just over this land

      so that I hover like a gold-laced cloud,

      dizzy and tearful,

      clinging for my dear life

      to a mountaintop.

      31I might kiss you never,

      but if I could save you but once,

      if I could be there one time

      to throw my body before a poisoned dart,

      32if I could be there one time only

      to eat up your depression

      and die of it in your place,

      it would be sweeter to my soul than a kiss.

      No treasure could match it

      ~wrote Anatiya.

      2

      Even as a youth,

      before the flower of my maidenhood had bloomed,

      I have been devoted to you; your secret bride

      whom you did not know.

      2When my desire pierced me

      like a wreath of thorns around my head,

      and when the pain was sharp behind my eyes,

      I escaped into the wilderness

      and filled my arms with nature’s harvest.

      3I stretched out in beds of blossoms

      until my skin was pressed with petals.

      4I tromped barefooted, plowing the soil with my toes.

      5At the height of my sickness for you, Jeremiah,

      I threw my arms around a sturdy tree

      and my legs over a stubby branch,

      and, 6O God! Let my piety remain intact!

      7I assure you no man has known me, my dear,

      but that tree did break my virgin seal.

      I kissed its wooden heart

      ~wrote Anatiya.

      8My father did leave when I was a child.

      He had chewed on my mother’s heart,

      sucked it like a cluster of purple grapes through his teeth,

      but she still eked out some love for me.

      9Never did I ask her “Where is my father?”

      10What need had I of frightful eyes and a beard of thorns?

      11Purple cloth has the high price of gold

      yet my mother was clothed in purple for free,

      like swollen leeches under her skin.

      She was my mother-queen.

      12He abandoned us

      and at five I did the work of a bondsman,

      bearing bundles on my shoulders like a pack mule,

      teetering and scraping along the corners of the farmers’ fields.

      13My sapling-thighs strained like an ox,

      rolling a stone wheel to grind that wheat into flour.

      14My mother made loaves to sell to merchants.

      15She wept over my neck

      which was too young and might break

      under the weighty water jugs

      I bore home atop my head.

      16My neck was lovely and slender as a bride’s wrist

      peeking out from under ceremonial wraps.

      17I grew cedar-strong and sun-callused,

      black as the tents of Kedar,

      industrious as an insect dragging twice its weight

      with its wispy baby-hair legs.

      18On my mat I dreamt toil

      so that my sleep was sore and physical,

      little less than the days.

      19I heard the buzz of heat and the silence loud

      and the sun struck me dizzy

      so that, I am ashamed O Lord!

      20I sometimes stole a suck from a she-goat’s teat

      when her shepherd looked away.

      21The iniquity of a child, dear Lord,

      if I am guilty, I stand accused

      ~wrote Anatiya.

      22I did find my mother

      the day she died.

      23I found my fount of living waters

      seeping redly into Sheol.

      24I chipped the dough-flakes from her hands

      and tucked poppies under her low breasts,

      two broken cisterns

      that cannot even hold water.

      25I wept.

      I dragged her on her mat with my two hands,

      walking backwards, my bird-back hunched,

      my cries raised up.

      26I scuffled her to the grave I dug,

      like a little ant dragging a fragment of honeycomb

      six times its weight, clenched in pinching jaw,

      jerking it under the ground.

      27My head was bare.

      I sat between heaven and death,

      an avalanche of hurt ran down my chest,

      tears, and the tremble of heartbreak.

      28Good-bye my queen,

      my earthly sovereign.

      Heaven help me little me,

      I was utterly dazed

      ~wrote Anatiya.

      29I must have done a twofold wrong

      to have driven away my father

      and lost my mother’s spirit.

      30Forgive me, O Heaven,

      my presence is no salve,

      my touch no healing balm.

      31But know, Lord, as much

      as this damaged vessel can bear,

      with its fissures and leaks,

      that awe for You is in me!

      Awe for You is in me!

      ~wrote Anatiya.

      32God speaks to you, Jeremiah,

      with hot-iron words God strikes you.

      33God brands you with the Most High disappointment.

      God tears a fissure in the firmament

      and lets loose the skies’ ocean upon your soul.

      34Ocean-tossed boy,

      I am your