C h l o e B l i s s S n y d e r —

On the Empress

A’ll’ove none of that

Dream Mother, Moon —

silly sister, inconstant aunt  

no skimblood virgin but 

the Mother Real of 

Alllove is Sun. ☉ 

The symbub we’ve been wrested from.  

Circ-star started at center, its heart

compassed by her softliest arms  

☉ ergo ego, the selfsame 

milkbud.  

Naked in labor  

both and repose, 

imposing  

as if for her portrait — 

her every leg’s spread,  

and unseen’s — 

her invert ed-delta  

de Vénus between. 

But even Venus Real is ever 

shining behind the sky, 

as she’s here, sh‘hind her  

acorn-shaped shield.  

Its oak tree sigil’s the silhouette  

of a keyhole.  

L’Impératrice — L’Impénétrable

is the act which burns within her. 

In a field for all seasons,  

one senses if she 

were to speak  

in the field cinctured 

by cypress and myrtle, 

pink myrtle purple as her, 

her voice’d be the clearing. 

She sighs, presses 

her palms all together, 

cypress as 

you’re boring her!  

She’s teasing you —

to come and peek  

between her prayers. 

Come open the eagle’s  

milkweed pod, 

an egg full of feathers 

wherein’s 

one nectar-speck only 

the color of blood 

for the monarch’s folded gold. ☉ 

The upright eye of the sun  

from whence with 

white rush — blonde push 

an aurum ovum comes, 

come under 

an overturned blue-bellied bowl  

ciel-ling her kirk

she closes 

and opens in rhythm with th’invisible

river rush weaving the tree ring  

and round the tree’s hidden rings.  

Ringing is marrying 

is marring 

with year-rings  

all the yearnings  

infinite variety desires.  

But in these intimate altarings, 

no sacrifice she asks 

but acknowledgement  

in motherkind kindling  

something split n rived in ricks  

of straw,

her flossy ruin, the baleful, bound 

by band of gold  

she spun  

with her red hair full of sun 

from the name she gave you.  

The wrest manifest 

and the flawlost,  

reforged  

and hung fulvous 

from trees. 

Then the edginglight, gently 

falln from these —  

now disrobes wholly, throwing 

the hotsong inward, touching  

everything. 

Have you seen without shadow before?

Have you felt — ever? 

Enfolded with no furrow? 

As the dome of her temenos grows

distended, 

swells and convexes and presses

firmament against earth, 

implosions  

in the escutcheon — 

three-hundred-three 

pomme-and-garnet seeds.  

The long hollow detruncated, 

dark armatures of escaped flame 

dance round her aperture 

in a ring round we.  

And the burning  

book in her lap  

turns to my beginning. 

.