history's caw and chirp and bird shit
on the tombs
in
the high grass.
On hairy serrated stems
poppies flagged like tongues.
Petals of flat paper
lined your thumbed-out pockets.
Anther seeds burned your pen.
From a cloud of broom the red bee stumbled,
and snuggled in your fish-globe brain.
Acasket of honey-colored light
kissed the eyebrows of a tree.
Perch slithered the helix of your ear
Sevan's rippling blue skirt
caressed your chest; waves lapped,
gulped, tongued you fresh.
When the evening air settled
on the creatures of the mountain
the sun was an ovum
or the head of the Virgin.
Here, where the bush grew with fresh blood
and ancient thorns, you picked the rose
without scissors. Buried your hand
in
the bramble. Became an omen.
K.
E. Duffin
GOETHE AT NAPLES
The sky is overcast, and a sirocco is blowing,
as
if
the grasses were compelled to write
an invisible page, and then another -
something fierce and warm and bureaucratic
grabs them, takes them up into the sky,
where the burly light insists,
"Here, let me have that."
Aweather for writing letters.
