Virgin and child

our honeymoon’s just us,

limbless electricity, just torsos

feasting on each other’s porcelain nipples, bullseyes

brushed with brittle lightning branches,

promethean orphans compulsively retracing their route

into the holy mountain

a fretwork of stray flares and bullets

fall from the sky like orgiastic mutterings

of vulture prayers

stolen on a dare from a gold leafed Byzantine icon,

a Virgin and child, two virgins, watching the bruised storm

change colours