Were-
Naru Dames Sundar
I. Werewolves are so passé, At the party, tips of fur bristling, All silver amidst the samite, Or dusky gray shredding sable Leaving strips of chiffon In their wake. All of them, chanting obeisance Into the darkening sky And the pale moon, Raven's egg rising. I sit cross-legged in the corner, Flagon of ale in my palm. I know their goddess, That shifty-eyed oval, Pockmarked queen. She bit me once, In an arbor full of rosemary. She walked down Clad in damask, Along a strip of cloud. I felt her teeth, Sharp incisors against my neck, The lap of tongue Smelling of camphor. Nowadays, I feel her, Even when she is belly deep Under the horizon. Except when she hides Behind mother sun, And then I have to slip Inside lakes and seas To unmapped depths. Skin splays and bones lengthen, And I become fat and full Of rock, shale, amethyst and pearl And I am a new moon rising. II. I felt its teeth at birth, The universe. An ocean of mouths, Rustling teeth as small as dust motes As large as worlds When my face was porcelain and young, It shattered me with its little love bites, Until they called me a pockmarked queen And no damask could hide my scars. When the orrery aligns, And my tooth-borne curse becomes light, I am for a moment Stretched out across unbound time And my diadem crown, all pearls and snow, Widens to drink a river of stars And all that swim at the banks. III. A singularity bit me once, An infinite god with teeth, Uncaring of My ocean of gas-giants, My tick-tock pulsars, My nebulae refracting light I was just another universe To bite. Now I must suffer, each epoch, Space-time folding in on itself, Until I am nothing more than A point of infinite grace, Waiting to unfurl again.
Naru Dames Sundar is a speculative fiction writer who lives in the mountains of Santa Cruz. His work has previously appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Crossed Genres, and here in Liminality, and is forthcoming at Nature:Futures & Strange Horizons.