Mistletoe

Aloft in the branches of a wintertorn oak
Sole in my swaddled kingdom

No one to take of my luminous berries
My brinewater babies, blanched white and plump
That I offer to the sultry sky

I have rested on the foreheads of princes and priests
I’ve sent gods to death, been given to love

And still my skeletoid sphere is unsullied
No desperate reaching into that dank
Darkness from which all else grows

I have laughed at berries of starkling red
Responded to mid-black of darker fruit

But know in my seeds lie more dangerous stops
Purer delire, a wilder poison
The mystery of white perfection

First published: Paris/Atlantic – an International Journal of Creative Work, Spring 1999, Vol XXI No 1