Point Ponde

We set out to prove the bank boys wrong,
to prove the nihilists wrong,
to prove the preachers wrong,
to prove our mothers wrong,
to prove our brain gremlins wrong.
We took with us only our saturated dreamcatchers
and the slugs from our gardens
and a sack full of clanging sounds
and the smell of wet, rusted metal.

I could sing of our adventures until my throat turns to dust
and my eyes are but mythstones on the mantlepiece of my lover.
But here I will tell you of the night we followed the fruit bats
on a clitoral gust up to Point Ponde
and met the angels.

They hid but we knew they were there
because the babies in our wombs became restless,
and our pendants began levitating away from our chests,
and the barking dogs in our minds
went silent.

The blue ones came out first.
They kissed our foreheads
and filled the father-shaped holes in our hearts
and rocked us to sleep cradled in whale hide wings.

The brown ones had patchwork burlap wings
and left shimmering snail trails behind them.
They taught us how to speak with the soil gods
through a half-buried conch shell
to make things grow.

The green ones were shy til we brought them mollusks from the sea
which they added to their living costumes.
They gave us tree tea which cracked open our heads
and showed us we don’t need a man to be happy.
Their wings were translucent like dragonflies.

Gold angels are inscrutable old rascals
with long white mustaches and wings of runed parchment.
They induced us to labor with intimate touching
and we gave birth not with pain
but with ecstacy.

The children were raised in napeling cribs
and rocked to sleep by the songwinds of the angels.
We told each other our deepest secrets,
and it turned out we all had the same ones.

We set out to prove the bank boys wrong,
to prove the nihilists wrong,
to prove the preachers wrong,
to prove our mothers wrong,
to prove our brain gremlins wrong.
We descended from Pointe Ponde
with glowing hearts and strong children,
and bowie blossoms in our hair,
and an unbreakable, eternal sisterhood,
and our heads held high.

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/point-ponde-68ca84132e2f