Confronting Something Internal Within By Karla Linn Merrifield

Confronting Something Internal Within

                       ~I failed to hear the heart that was beating
                        alone/ on the naked ride home. – Jackson Browne,
                        “The Naked Ride Home”
 
I am the naked ghost crone
who has slipped ethereally into your nights
among women’s bodies—I have heard you moan.
 
Again, again, I have erotically cast the rune bones—
Marianne, Pamela, a chick named Connie flamed bright
through me for I am the naked ghost crone.
 
Feeling your lips, your fingertips, your feathers, your stones,
feeling Nico, Janice, Laura, Daryl you slid into—o, tight!
Among your lovers’ bodies I have heard you moan.
 
Sensuously holding you in my power cone,
inhabiting Joni, Phyllis, Lynne with love’s second sight,
I am your naked ghost crone.
 
I have lured you tenderly to desire’s warm home,
worshipped, worshipping—with heat, touch, good, right—
when among women’s bodies I have heard you moan.
 
Then is the hour I write the poem
your song has quickened in the light.
I am the naked ghost crone
among those women’s bodies— I have heard you moan.

Karla Linn Merrifield has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. In early 2021, her Half a World of Kisses will be published by Truth Serum Press (Australia) under its new Lindauer Poets imprint. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY).