The Anger of the River - a poem by Chris Zachariou

A Korean Tiger in the Snow

We know nothing of each other
except for our love of great theatre.

She recites sonnets on the balcony
of her white bedroom in Verona
and I, her shy poet-lover stand
beneath her tragic balcony.

I had lived my whispered life
in the darkness of Byzantine vespers
until she came side-saddle on a leopard
from beyond the Gobi Desert.

Kneeling, I washed her feet in
spikenard, I kissed her hallowed
footprints in the snow and sand
and for a fleeting moment, she
let me glance inside her prison.

It was terrifying—
Abraham’s stern commands were
standing keepers at the gate.

Obsessed with salvation, we pray
by the shoreline and in the night
of the second storm, we weather the yellow
rain without the safety of the ark.

Casting our nets in the water, we beg
for absolution, but the Anger of the River
sentenced us to a life of penance for
the hideous crime of pious modesty.