My Golem

My Golem

I make my golem
from the scrapings under my nails
and the dirt on the heels of my hands
and the blood dried on my legs
and the tears of every woman
and in her mouth I put a scroll
reading justice and
on her forehead I engrave
the word truth and with that
I cross her
and I send her out
and
all 

across
the world  

my golem
creates her own
golems and
when the day comes
they fill the benches

in the courts
representing every woman
who can’t say me too
and they stare and stare
at all the men and the men
know

her power has come
multitudinous
unstoppable

hungry for more justice
and to avenge every
her
they know.

•

Change of Season

What do you see
in the snow-bit candlefrost?
Do the trees try to capture
the sickle moon?
Do you see me
in my frost-knit camouflage?
My heart is beating
in the hollow of this tree. 

Seek and find me
deep in the brassy honeycombs;
seek and find me,
deep in the river-king’s nest.
I am waiting to dismantle
every thing that weighs me down. 

Lift away my lunar headdress;
uncoil the ropes around my frame.
My antlers fall to the leafy carpet.
I cast away collars, high and tight. 

Take the buzzing and cawing creatures;
pluck away my crocheted cage.
My fins and my wings and my hands are free.
I open my eyes and scent the wolf and the fox. 

Release me from armor and wax and cocoons;
shatter the bonds of ice, night, and smoke.
My paint and my glamours dissolve into rime;
I shift in my bones and become a new god.

---

Kendra Preston Leonard is a poet, lyricist, and librettist whose work is focused on the mythopoeic, the historical, and the natural world. Her first chapbook, Making Mythology, will be published in early 2020 by Louisiana Literature Press. Her novella in verse, Protectress, which imagines the gorgons of myth in the modern world dealing with #MeToo, slut-shaming, the power of women, and compassion, will be published in January 2021 by Unsolicited Press.