All the Way to the End

I was never the one to seek out ecstasy.
You must know that by now . . .
yet even then when the blush
was blooming, I'd lay in awe
and listen to your heartbeat
enraptured knowing you were mine.
We loved like the sun and moon
finding our own rhythm
glowing and dimming
always returning to the place
where we began.

Back then . . . it was the flesh
impatient to climb the mountain
to cling like moss to the rock it found.
We were young and beautiful
shining even in the dark
you and I, always yearning
always hungry for more.
Little did we know
that "more" grows deeper in the soil
than moss that climbs so visible.
"More" grows deep beneath the flesh.

Years have passed and time
has changed these bodies drawing lines
across our flesh
but here we are, my love . . . still singing.

Even now . . .
when I come to you
my beauty less than yesterday
your eyes still say I'm beautiful
for what you see is more
and I know that it's your love
that holds my soul and blesses me
and I will love you . . . to the end.

Joanne Cucinello 2010

In the Beginning . . . There Was War

She lay there in the dark
walls of Fallopia
She . . .
expelled from her safe
ovarian nest
She . . .
one of many,
this moon’s offering
to the god of fertility.

Throughout Fallopia
there is trembling
awaiting the great sacrifice.

She could hear their battle cries
far off in the distance
the vast and furious army of Sperm,
propelled through the tubes
of Fallopia
in one great seminal wave.

The frenzied race begins.
Blind though they are,
rapt by some ancient ritual
they struggle up the
dark and twisted passage way
to where she lay in wait for the attack.

One by one they strike,
her armor weakened with each blow
‘til soon her vanquished ovum doors split open
there . . . the Champion enters . . . the sacrifice complete
amidst the whirling chaos. . . a soul is born.

In the beginning . . there was war . . .this is the stuff we are made of.

Joanne Cucinello 2007

Rim of Gold

At the edge of my body
lies a rim of gold.
I am encased in light.
I am alive within my soul
which surrounds me
and remembers
who I am.

My feet touch the earth
that I alone inhabit
this speck of space material.
The earth connects me to
the core of my body ~
the sky receives the rays
of my soul.

When I leave this place
I will shed my skin
like an overcoat
my bones will turn to ash
and I will step out
into forever
all my colors shining

my true heart ablaze and ready
for the ride back home
where they will know me
and greet me
like a new born child
arrived with gifts wrapped
into my swaddling clothes

and I will give them all my earthly pearls
the remnants of their grace bestowed.

Joanne Cucinello 2010