St. John the Baptist Eats Honey and Locusts in the Desert

The moon is magnified tonight

and I give thanks for your sinuous golden waves,

for your crackling bodies. Tomorrow,

when dawn chills my hermit’s cave,

I will call you by name.

Sweet elixir, gathered from gilded combs

in the blistered feet of afternoon,

the dry wind of evening will soon sift my prayers.

When night swells the pulsing of flesh

and veiled pleasures, I will  come to you,

the ache in my throat catching your thickness,

sucking ardor from the daylong sun,

licking my fingers under a gibbous moon.

–excerpt from “St John the Baptist Eats Honey and Locusts in the Desert” from Chasing the Saints by Donna Pucciani (Virtual Artists Collective 2008). First published in Tar Wolf Review.