The earth, mucked and drawling

From the rain that falls like rice,

Pitching, rattling through the air like

Skulls, scattering curls of wood-brown

Hair; it burns like fire ants in winter,

And from the loam, I rise, the cast

Seals my eyes, the ambrosia writhes,

A sickness of the calico fumes rises--

The remains of the sky inhume me.

-

The leaves mouldering, smelling

Of rain, and smoke, and ashes--

Last I walked with the woman, before

My heartwood could take up honey,

The rain had stopped for those days

Like a million moths suspended around

A flame, a burning mobile.

-

Panicked at the cobwebs pulsing

Underneath the plate of living flesh,

At the midges alighting where was bone

Year before last when the the others

Stood, standing like the stones, and

They knew the knowing from their bones,

The newt, the salamander, the men of

The city of molten rock.