The goddess of young corn is warned by her mother not to bathe in the canal.
There is concern the god of spring storms might seduce
and impregnate, which, of course, he does.
She refuses him at first
on the grounds of her age, the inexperience of her mouth,
the inevitability of her parents’ protests.
The god cannot take no for an answer. He orders
his servant to build a boat that he might travel to her side
of the uninterrupted bank. She has changed her mind by the time he
arrives. She becomes pregnant with the moon god.
The god of spring storms returns to the city. He is declared a sex offender
and banished to the far mountain river that leads to the underworld.
The goddess of young corn follows her beloved
first stopping at the city gate, then just shy
of the mountain river, then at the bank of departures.
Each time
she meets a different man:
gatekeeper, guardian of the river, ferryman.
Each time announcing she bears the moon in her womb.
Each time, the different man is the same man. She lies with the same
different man. She conceives a second son, then another, then
one more. The Sumerian word for water is also the word
for semen. You are bathing in the canal, now, because I am
attracted to stories of power and sex. I like
taboo. The goddess did not know she was sleeping
with the god in disguise. She slept with what she thought
were three men other than her beloved all in the span
of less than a page. Primal willingness, you called it,
what we might have to do to each other for refuge.
You say you want
me to be more vulnerable. I can hear you telling me
there’s an opportunity, here, in this part of the poem, to open
into the aliveness of my heart, blue and raging fruit.
We return to the city for the first trimester ultrasound. Our second
daughter. This time they find a cyst on the umbilical cord. Rare
this early in. The technician calls the doctor into the room.
She says it could be nothing.
Artifact. Or the fetal heart could grow
on the outside of the chest.
It’s a long quiet ride home until it’s not.
We collapse on the couch.
We hold each other longer than we’ve held each other before
and longer than we will ever hold each other again.
I step outside for a smoke. The moon is out. I haven’t prayed in years.
One of the moon’s brothers later becomes king
of the underworld. There are two versions of that story.
I prefer the one where he journeys because death fascinates him.
He glimpses death, naked, after bathing.
They make love for seven days, alternating riots of light.
He runs off to the upper world, leaving a grieving
death. He returns years later and, laughing,
grabs death, who is called Ereshkigal, by the hair, and pulls
her from her throne. Another seven days,
and they are together forever.
God, I say, if you’re out here
please give me a sign that everything will be ok. I hear
a plane fly overhead, though I can’t see it. I hear my own voice ask
What is it? What is it we’re naming here?
Issam Zineh is a poet, editor, and public health worker. He is author of Unceded Land (TrioHouse Press, 2022), a Trio House Press Editors’ Selection and finalist for the Housatonic Book Award and Balcones Prize for Poetry. His newest writing appears or is forthcoming in AGNI, Columbia Journal, The Yale Review, Gulf Coast, and Prairie Schooner. He lives on Paskestikweya land. www.issamzineh.com