Consider, O Lover, my throatwhite as cigarette paper.The crushed lavender of my knuckles.My heart, a dulled needle threaded throughtoo many patterns.

Consider my Lover; the yellow churchof his skin, the clean wells of his ears;How the notes of a song come to himlike birds descending on a power line;How in his absence I am of twothroats–each...

I know my breasts, smallas plums, would win no blue ribbons.But in your hands they tremble and fillwith song like plump, white birds.

There are boneswaiting for names in the graveyards.Even the sun above us is dying, onelanded repetition of light at a time.

Winter is already a lost shape, forgottenin the ground. Instead, here is Springwith all the grace of a womansmoothing out her apron.

Darkness moves like a pack of wild dogs.The wind moves like a wounded animal.The ground must be full of teeth by now.

That dandy, the sky, enters blue-suitedsun like a scotch in hand.

If Springtime crawls out of thewild mouths of flowers, thensurely, Winter crawls out of mine.

Consider, O Lord, how You sit atop the sky;like a man in a glass bottom boat.Consider sky elsewhere; worn thin as a mattress.

If the sun rolled back like an eye,it would see the mind of God.

Prayer is a many fingeredand kaleidoscopic thing—it foldsand unfolds inside of you. It entersthe many rooms you cannot enter.

Consider the road, long and forkedas the Devil’s own tongue.Consider the Devil, burningevery bridge; Placingin every tree a black bird. In every bird a black thought.