Sun tears by Alison Ross

The sea bows in prayer to the sun,
then shrinks back into the temple
of itself.

I drink in the solitude of the sea,
its dark wine filling me with the ecstasy
of emptiness.

But the sea is restless with nightmares.
It fears it will awaken a desert:
the corpse of an ocean
bled dry by the sun.

Tomorrow I will have nightmares
that I am drowning
inside the sun.
I dissolve into haloes,
and breathe.

I awaken, and hear god’s voice
trapped inside a stone,
howling
from its center of silence.

And I cry,
weeping tears of an ocean
bled dry.



Alison Ross, Atlanta, USA