For W.
My fingertips of death
in the V of your neck,
I’m the murmuring penumbra
slipping down to your chest.
Man in the shadow
valley of lily,
lily in the cavity
of the night made man –
what Judith’s been fashioned
through our horsehair deeds,
the handholds and hot blood
of your nameless needs.
Ecce you, outside
the circle of every acolyte
candle that cries on the edge
of chiaroscuro.
Holofernes and knife,
young, sick, Bacchus,
sup of Emmaus,
you are always beside me
(wine spilt on the thighs
of Goliath and Christ).
Any number of sparrows,
turn to doves at this sleight.
Whoever casts the first shadow
also casts the first light.
Linda Ann Strang is the author of Wedding Underwear for Mermaids. Star Reverse, her second poetry collection, will be published by Dryad Press in March 2022. Linda lives in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and she teaches at Nelson Mandela University. Her poems and short stories have been published internationally.