PARANGTRITIS
Loro Kidul rules over this coast, over these words,
the green goddess of scales, foam and seaweed.
They invoke her with rice and jasmine, he said.
Sometimes a goat. More often sick babies, always girls.
We practised love on Thursdays, at the holy hour,
scouring each other in shell-gravel and father-sand,
believing what lovers greedily promise: my tongue
slid past reins, lisped fidelity, became hard
and sharp. Gongs began to beat, and there she
already began to rise, with bulging eyes, fangs and slime,
her sex a pregnant muzzle, sucking me
down, through the swell of your spirit.
Publisher: In de Knipscheer, December 2003.
Book: € 15,00, cd (music by Dirk Stromberg): € 18,00. Set book + cd: € 29,50.
Postbox 6107, 2011 HC Haarlem, The Netherlands.
www.alberthagenaars.nl
www.indeknipscheer.nl
