EXCAVATE
No, this is not the place
you want
to be
from.
To be wild and know the sounds
trees make.
To taste the fruit—
to make
in the garden.
BURNING MYRRH FOR HER ANGER
for Aphrodite
Sea anemones grow every year. She remembers. She’s not the hunter
but knows provocation. I sing to the bees and make honeycakes.
The roses stain with sweet wine.
Horse hooves kick myrtle wind. You wanted your childhood, but we wanted you.
Myrrh.
I burn myrrh for her. The tree
holds her like a lover. I burn myrrh for you. I burn.
Honeycake-crumbles
on my lips,
I even tasted the offerings.
When you aren’t there,
I burn.
It is not easy for anyone,
beauty.
Repulsed at her own visions.
dove apple scallop seashell clam
[depicted nude]
Born of the sea, borne in bloody foam.
It is not easy for anyone,
beauty.
Man slayer, pomegranate scepter.
Jealousy, like wind in the limes.
She is warlike.
The ocean persuades.
Dolphins bring her
pearls. Luminescent, wet pearls.
Each pearl, a bead
for her necklace.
Swans thread
and waves string
her memories with salt.
Tell the tale, lover mommy.
Tell the tale.
It is a beautiful necklace.
It is a beautiful shell.
LILIES
There are graves in this sentence.
I planted lilies, there
once.
Like this work? Donate to Julia Laxer.
Julia Laxer lives for the stories and writes in the afternoons from a messy desk in a rose-lit room in downtown Portland, Oregon. She won the Orlando Prize in Nonfiction from A Room of Her Own (AROHO) in 2014, and her work is featured in magazines, journals, and anthologies including The Los Angeles Review, So-to-Speak, and Zócalo Public Square. Julia writes poems, essays, erotica, memoir, and explores archetype and ritual within performance art. Most recently, Most recently, she premiered a time-based performance of "The Girl Who Stole Spring," a modern retelling of the myth of Persephone.