I
here I’ m here I’ m here I’ m
here here here here cricket
pulse — the katydidic tick
(and then a pause) tick
(and then a pause) in greening trees — tales
of a gratitude for water, the hollyhock’ s
trumpet Yes, Tenderness
her glove and hoe — her bad trip
love/grief, her medic tent
talking me down, kissed fissures
in the world’ s despair, what I’ d
loved — alive for a while — a day called
Rip and Brood, a day called
Glorious Hour, the long hunt and the worm found
The father died and then the mother died.
And you were so addicted
to not feeling them, you told no one about the clamp
inside —
around the vena cava. Dam against the blood's
trash —
But I've got you now. Trussed at the waist
in a wooden chair,
You’ re gonna strike the match —
You’ re gonna strike it —
Flame the bank up into pods
of fire, be
a masterhand —
—
And someone said, Gasoline.
Someone said, We have to change the images
inside their heads, said
Gasoline?
And motor oil, he bought at a mini-mart.
—
You have installed a voice that can soothe you: agents
of the eaten flesh, every body
a cocoon of change —
Puparium. The garden
a birthing house, sarcophagidae —
And green was so dark in the night-garden, in the garden's
gourd of air —
green's epitome
of green's peace, the beautiful inhuman
leg-music, crickets'
thrum —
a pulse
