I studied the magic
of happiness no one avoids. –Rimbaud
Feed me lemon shavings, cinnabar.
A binary star: attar and alizarin.
Cobbles and dread. The solitary sinking
deadens us all. No alkahest.
Blood, flowers, fire, jewels.
The least in me changes,
turns wooden.
Screws, convolvulus,
serif type, the pavonine.
Rosemary oil on fingertips,
lightning spread in hands,
gold bolts.
I spew new fruit.
Mouths mesh in the garden bed,
like two candles guttering.
Had there not been
a caress, an understood phrase,
a curtsey down the olive grove,
the trunks would be fire black,
my eyes would be boundaries of hearths.
Arms open as spine wings, a morphogenesis.
Dawn, the fingernail
above treetops.
