not the turn to gold but touch he
wanted most, no object that
flesh of his
supper gelled to shining
ore lumps when he bit, that sepals
stiffened on the rose
like nipples bared to frost. not
the lark that lasted but the scar
its moneyed weight peeled
down the tree. not the trophy
hound, that sudden andiron
dropped from his lap,
but the fox, stinking, invisible,
unchased.
myth to asses’ ears,
no nodding velveted clefts
named his errata, not a page
or armed barber kissed the riverbed
to scandalize the reeds
into singing true. and when his daughter,
as he’d tell it, sprang
into his transmuting arms, and after,
there was no god to take the hardening gift away.
Jendi Reiter is the author of five poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Made Man (Little Red Tree, 2022); the story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot Press/New Millennium Writings, 2018); and the novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, 2016), which won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary Fiction. Their novel Origin Story is forthcoming from Saddle Road Press in 2024. They are the editor of the writing resource site WinningWriters.com.
