Sibyl
By Judith HuangYou descended into hell.
You plunged, razed it with your eyes –
This song is in praise of you.
You descended into hell
in a boat
with the outstretched branch of your kindness.
You burned into hell
You pocketed the stone of my death
and flung it at the forehead
of the last lake.
You kissed the cold pennies
of my eyes
And in hell, amongst the slithering tongues,
You take one, and fix
it to the pit
of my mouth
And everywhere lead me
by its wag.
You swag
over the deep
You burst from the ocean
with dry feet
You cast the sinking hook
of my wrong.
And do you know
this corner hurts,
this hurts, this government
bitter as a hook
in my mouth.
I would curse you
Spit the tyranny
of you
If you had not shown me first
The boned flesh of you
Those holes
You will never heal.
You are hell.
You breathe hell. You expel it.
You devour hell.
And I, too, am in hell
Until I love You.
You are fearfully and terribly
You.
You burn bright in the forest,
You made You.
You burn bright in the forest
With red eyes.
Every day I wake up I open
into a scarecrow.
Every day we feel the blow
of the earth’s jitters.
You must scare away my crow
That dark pecking daw
That dark pecking daw
Still at it, still at it
on my sleeve.
Gibber it out
of its wits
Incinerate its beak
Raze the earth
with those eyes.
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Judith Huang ‘09, an English concentrator living in Currier House, is the Fiction & Poetry Editor of The Ichthus.
