Poetry Reading: Volcano Lover, by Walt Trask

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Capri is framed by the east window,
Mount Vesuvius centers in the west. Chandeliers
suspend high, trapeze artists erupting their crystal
blooms to guide a Mardi Gras of painted clay and gesso
far below ceiling

vaults. Do you recall sunset velvet splayed across marble
and moss of the ruin over there? I imagined you imagining
that glow coming from spits of lava exhaled by your crater-mountain-god, disrupting ground
more than we shook the bed. Your voice rumbled, your eyes ignited, instructing
me your lover

was that volcano, not I. It was my gift to you, unwrapped
in eternal, unpredictable threat against what I thought was only sky. Your body
flows away, mercury untamed in the shadow of that volcano, resting
your memory where it breathes potent. I lost sovereignty by its
annexation of you.
You need that volcano like seed does soil,
smoke does fire,
Earth does Sun.