Invocation

There is a poem on the way,
there is a poem all round me,
the poem is in the near future,
the poem is in the upper air
above the foggy atmosphere
it hovers, a spirit
that I would make incarnate.
Let my body sweat
let snakes torment my breast,
my eyes be blind, ears deaf, hands distraught,
mouth parched, uterus cut out,
belly slashed, back lashed,
tongue slivered into thongs of leather
rain stones inserted in my breast,
head severed,

if only the lips may speak,
if only the god will come.


Kathleen Raine