snailcat
‘The Maastricht Hours’, Liège 14th century.
British Library, Stowe 17, fol. 185r
I came from a place with a hole in it,
my body once its body, behind a beard of hair.
And after I emerged, all dripping wet,
little drops came out of my eyes, touching its face.
I kissed its mouth; I bit it with my gums.
I lay on it like a snail on a cup,
my body, whatever its nature was,
revealed to me by its body. I did not know
I was powerless before a strange force.
I did not know life cheats us. All I knew,
nestling my head in its soft throat pouch,
was a hard, gemlike feeling burning through me,
like limbs of burning sycamores, touching
across some new barrier of touchability.
—Henri Cole, “Sycamores”
Art Credit Emilie Halpern via Booooooom
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