Arethusa

1.

I call the main body, marker: a standing as if

in stead of. Or else a thing stooped down upon, and snapped. From branch I call

the main body, bramble: crescive glow from a crusted switchbox. On and off until a kind

of curfew comes. I call the main body, espoused. Line of symmetry inside, trench between

two lungs for the twoness of, the two-timedness of breathing. By oxygen-drawn sheerness

into red I call the branches to describe themselves…               

2.

Looking quietly at a trumpet, its flared bell, its blackness encompassed by brass I said

wait

at a black fruit in seas of prickers I said wait.     A body is mainly its branches

branca               claw paw hand             its tender

and untender branches.

3.

A wealthy sound in velvet niches, silver bedded with silver. Draw the curtains

for candescence, candlestubs in silver antlers. The sun coughs down

auroras, illumines branches of

extinction. Beneath the tree a childhood coffer, a peony and

an acorn smell.

“Arethusa” first appeared in Fourteen Hills