Blood's backroad then a sudden red branch
breaking up inside a kaleidoscope.
A meadow of loose colored chips
rotating inside a shepherd's sunken
purse; the possession of its waiting between
sad mirrors in the endless
changing heat of a mother's forehead
like a stain.
An explosion of butterflies
into lonely glossy rings, tails
white from the horses littered
migraine. You watch the shrinking trees
fevers moan, scratching into vertical
sheets of light; that nurse
with the enormous lens
blankly & rountinely unfolds.
The drought has ears of dissapointed bone.
A still & broken rain in its sleaves.
Lifting like rows of pipes out of a burning stove.
The trees now bite off their fingers
& pile their stiff clothes
like a cushion for the wooden
hours or a blanket for the hole.
The wind pushing us to come out.
Water invading the heavy bell
like a bucket used to kick us to sleep
or to wake & bury us
with the speedy black
coat of loss inside.