I imagine the gods saying by Veronica Golos

I imagine the gods saying, We will make it up to you.  We will give you three wishes, they say.

—Jack Gilbert, Imagine the Gods

I.

They are nowhere to be seen or heard. I know. I’ve walked
dune-like hills, trespassed the Morada, crossed the arid
arroyo deep and bitter with dust. I’ve searched and

they are gone, they no longer whisper in my throat
as they used to, when I was the girl.  “Girl,” they’d say,
“turn this corner, now, and be safe.” Most

times I did what they prompted, made my way though
the warren of my mother’s madness, tangled my long braids
with ribbons in talisman colors of ruby and white.

The gods would nudge me in sleep, singing their songs,
urging rest between battle.  They’d give me a new name,
recount the days I’d lived, slip me the heart of someone’s

daughter. “Eat,” they’d say, “be strong.”

II.

When I was the girl
The gods also gave gifts.  I could fly.
My girl body, in my yellow duck
pajamas stayed sleeping on the bed, of course, in case
I was looked for; but the I
of me, the one the gods whispered

warnings to, rose out of my girl
body, and through the window
floated along the rooftops.
It was a little joy I was allowed, and I told

no one.  I’d hum as I drifted through the night air, sing
a song meant to be heard
only by me.  I’d glide above the streets, the streetlamps
little stars, a slight rain
softening the city into another somewhere.

Then, I’d have to go back. And
the body would welcome me, yes,
but this me would be a bit sad,
to be inside flesh again,
and know what I knew.

Veronica Golos is co-editor of the Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, former Poetry Editor for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and core faculty at Tupelo Press’s Writers Conferences. Golos is the author of three poetry books, Rootwork (3: A Taos Press. 2015), Vocabulary of Silence (Red Hen Press, 2011), winner of the 2011 New Mexico Book Award, poems from which are translated into Arabic by poet Nizar Sartawi, and A Bell Buried Deep (Storyline Press, 2004), co-winner of the 16th Annual Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Edward Hirsch, and adapted for stage and performed at Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA. Golos has lectured at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, Hunter College, Julliard School of Music, Regis University, University of New Mexico, Dine Technical College, Kansas State University, and Colorado State University; She lives in Taos, New Mexico. U.S.A., with her husband, David Pérez.