Ardhanarishvara

[Sanskrit, “Half-Woman-Lord” — name

of the unified form of Shiva and Shakti

that combines both genders] 

The last rain, like the first rain, is
reborn as steam, a ghostly hiss.
The atmosphere is one sheer sphere
of fire. His hands say Do not fear—
upright, and facing forward—as his
numberless arms fan out, a lattice
to shelter her against the rain
that shivers like a peacock’s train.
Unless it’s she who shelters him,
her daybreak saree’s nightlong hem
becalming him like swaddling,
though she’s out of cradle songs to sing.

Now lover clambers onto lover—
no higher point, no deeper cover—
as lava sniffs between their feet
eager for more world to eat.
Destruction flows beneath them, molten
creation to its waiting mold. Once,
the icecaps melted; now, the boulders.
They watch it from each other’s shoulders,
neutral observers safe on ridges 
as rivers buckle below their bridges
and boardwalks in the grip of gales
toggle and rip like fingernails.

They sleep, too, always at the same hour,
in the noontime of the flamethrower.
They rest their heads in each other’s laps,
a Mobius strip that never snaps
no matter how intense the shockwave
bowing the glass skyscrapers concave.
Their third eyes—either one, a warhead’s
blast crater—open. From their foreheads,
the dreams go soaring in a braid, two
vines on a trellis, a shared tornado,
the grapes that swell along those vines
blood blisters, crushed for the reddest wines.

And when they make love, like a parted sea
they come together. She and he,
two gasps, one breath, one shout, two ears,
teeth in each other, engaged like gears.
They only find out they are halves when
the gunshot of a glacier calving
startles them back to who they are, 
or were. By then, they are just too far
into each other’s bodies. No border,
no bounds. The only way is forward,
both genders coupling in their form,
embraced, and braced against the storm.