Forgotten Ground Regained
Unmoved
Men without number, · merciless, wound me,my chaste beauty · their challenge and joy.Their fingers, restless, · rove my body.with their heavy lengths · they lie on me, nights,or by day, panting, · push into me,hard and unbending, · their bared needfulness:frightful, but some, · failing this, die,grasping, deserving. · Greed, for others,lust’s deputy, · with lances, roaring,keen pulse–piercer, · punctures my veins,a sunlit vampire, · sucker of blood.Flayed, too, and slashed, · stripped and defiled,but never bowed, · numinous, pale,I stand as sorceress, · summoning weather,guiding, inspiring · my scornful adorers.
Copyright © Donald Mace Williams, 2023
First published in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 2, Spring, 2024
Answer: a mountain