Seasmoke
Birch cinders
Black as youth
Lightning salt
Shred rope on pier
Gulls, pikes, mackerels, eels
Old salmon in the white stream
Painted with something familiar
I think of only you as I watch them.
Why do I think of you?
With a weary croon, you whisper
"My love, I am cracked and blistered
as old paper skin."
O beauty, O pagan charm
Your face mangled by a shrike
All that I can see, 'neath the harm
are needles for teeth.
❈❈❈❈❈
You are the steward
Of this faithful red lamp
Wick in your mouth, you lap
The wax that has spilt over
from this dying flame
Crackling as it burns, it sets alight
The shed skin, the tawny earth
Falling softly to the ground
from the violent deed
As I look at you
All settles quiet
Our clothes and crying skin,
on your oily wooden floor.
O clean, pious incense, tell me:
How wise is really the fool?
If he but walks upon you with a foot,
And covers the two,
The naked young souls
He turns them dark with soot,
He turns them beaten bare.
❈❈❈❈❈
Lover, show me your chest
For reluctantly I must
Run my blackened palms
and arrowed battle standards
In through your beating breast.
And out, so very meek
Wearing nothing but a sheet
Comes the ripened old voice
Of chimney smoke
❈❈❈❈❈
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