Orphic Hymn

It salmons from leagues of leafmulch

and writhes to the door.

Oak leaf shadow craters its spine range and neck

as if it walked between being’s lit breasts and the screen.

It’s got caught, opened in its antlers, the wood-covered 16th century book

that works out I am sick.

I hold this up to what I am doing, lying on the divan, haven’t pissed

or shit in days, infection’s horse’s rider lashes back and forth

with his black flag. Two winter stars with dessert plate heads

two months agowere nailed at either edge of my groin.

I’ve been pensioned a shield of bees

below my chin, under earliest skin, a bridge, a sleeve of industry.

The MRI tech asked if I like country or classical.

The dogwood tree blooms in the full window a rising whine.

The temperature of this nuzzles in like sediment that’s already stone.

A knife waits, girlish, down the hill, flipping over, over, small

fish flash at the bottom of that boat, convinced, the knife, crossing

and uncrossing its legs.