Excerpt from Donald Tyson’s Liber Lilith.

O my love, you are as upright as the palm whose fruit is ripe. You are slender as the river reed that bows its head at eventide. Your hips twist with the grace of the serpent that glides across the face of the waters, and the waters cover it not. Beneath the Sun your hair is a living flame woven on a loom with golden threads. Beneath the Moon your hair is a dark river that sweeps away the stars. Your breasts rise with your breaths like two sheep that climb the hillside. Beneath the Sun your eyes are white as doves that flit amid the cool green shadows of the cedar. Beneath the Moon your eyes are silver fish that dark and hide in obsidian depths. Your voice is as the splashing of a fountain in the heat of midday, and the paleness of your cheek a place of shade to lie under on the sands of the desert. Cool my parched lips with the wine of your kisses. Soothe my brow with sighs from the mountain snows. Your thighs are pillars of marble that guard the entrance to the Temple of Mysteries, black beneath the Sun but white under the Moon. With your scarlet mouth you smile wordless promises. Dance for me by moonlight, O my beloved. Come to my bed when the lamps burn dry of oil and the dogs that guard the threshold sleep. On the altar of your belly I offer up my lifeblood. Dance within my dreams until I love sleep more than waking, and learn to hate the dawn.

*Artwork, “Sister of the Night,” by Selenada.