Sandi Leibowitz
Lapis Lazuli
lapis, I said,
and felt the stone dissolve warm
on my tongue.
you, too, tasted.
here is where
birds understand
the purpose of their wings,
and the rose learns the art
of unfolding itself,
you said, and we gave
our blue tongues to each other.
here is where the center
of earth is, we said,
we are its axle,
double strands wed
to become single strand.
we are as holy as gravity.
we bit the stone again.
my hair grew so long in love
it swept the dust from the floor.
we bathed in the marble sarcophagi
and laughed the death from our flesh.
the secret of lazuli,
the secret of Lazarus.here is where the stone remembers
and grows warm again.
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Sandi Leibowitz is a native New Yorker who writes fiction and poetry, mostly fantasy based on myths and fairy-tales. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Goblin Fruit, Mythic Delirium, Jabberwocky, Apex, New York Quarterly, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry and other publications.
