gradiva-my-gradiva-alexis-dewitt

my gradiva, the most lovely girl who steps along these lava-hot stones
who lives as statue and earth and meat, bare and fruitful and rotting
she is the girl i have seen in my dreams, blinded by the beauty of her life
the beauty of death behind her
it is here she is swallowed
her esophagus burning hot and her lungs becoming smoke
(how does one burn inside, dear gradiva?)
gaze upon her now at this pedestal she lays upon, awaiting that burn, the scorch, that beauty
the eruption of vesuvius is nigh
soon my gradiva will be naught but char
she who is bared so lovely
fruitful and blessed with every bounty
pompeii shall be filled with corpses of mothers and fathers and children
beloved pets and the common bird one would swat away
the world will mourn the people of pompeii and oplontis
yet vesuvius will rage once more
i mourn my gradiva deeply and seek her
when i find her in that hellish-landscape pompeii, it is she who steps along those lava stones
i call to her and she hears nothing from me, for my gradiva does not turn around
it is my gradiva who will suffocate, who will live, who will die
my gradiva, it is here you will suffocate
bare on the marble slab as it crumbles beneath you
with the bees pausing in their fleeing to gaze upon you
and the red poppies at your feet bending close to offer you comfort
in your final moments you will only know the beauty of life
the ache of death will never touch you