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Belles Lettres

“belles lettres” It’s a slow drifting off, that moment before you dive into the dark you surface to find a boat surrounded by shining pearls, Styx, a mirror reflecting otherworldly stars hypnotic, you trail your long pale slender fingers in the forbidden water, it is cool to the touch a new fever embraces you, you become sensate the feelings hit your skin like shifting satin the sweetest shivering a new gliding Dante dream arrives your eyes are open, your mind suspended, held tight, as if netted with rope, as if stolen by something other guaranteeing an inevitable exchange that cannot be broken there your journey continues consistent, surreal and silent, not a word spoken no lyre music, yet, the sound heard like a distant memory, appreciated, like a quiet symphony, the soft siren splash of black, the taste of spray not salty, but like a kiss on your lips sweet and heady it tastes like honey mead like something foreign and expensive, you see your reflection in the rippling, and you think, I fear this will cost me this being here, in this peculiar place of there is no longer no fear of where we go, the rippling depths of as above so below, diamonds shining beneath waving strings of velvet ebony liquorice as above so below, the eternal river from one uncertain shore to the next, the oars like spatulas drip, the scent of violet napellus mixing the dark recipe, Venus Chariot, indigo robes of Morpheus Monkshood and Wolfsbane wrap their cloak around your nakedness you find yourself banked upon a shore collateral damage nubile again and barefoot invisible paws that scorch the sand mark their way toward you the physical presence unseen, but oh so unstill, now stops like silky brakes before you ominous and mysterious before you this presence waits, you see its warm breath like a strange mist, it is sensuous, caressing you this petite mort like a little death, you’re such a vulnerable and soft target then, the striking face and body materializes before you it takes your breath away You hear the words, 3 sentences delivered from unwavering emerald windows, "belles-lettres reçues. je suis ton ombre. payer le passeur." With its tongue it has passed you a broken stem the syrup sweet and dripping you take it in your hands like a royal sceptre; it now stands beside me and as I turn I do what it bids me do the broken bloom is given to the boatman who drops the pristine petals into the ebony flow like purple prose, the token is paid this torn Lily of the Nile each petal a word in a long sentence released beside me, a kiss on the hand, a stroke like a comfortable eternity felt it whispers, "l'arrivée a un coût." In my own way I agree, I respond, "belles-lettres je t'ai envoyées comme une panthère je deviens ton ombre" (LadyLabyrinth / 2023) "Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit." (Pursuit, Sylvia Plath)