So much is parchment where I gloom,
Character still sharp enough to prick
Into the hide my igneous
Old spells and canticles of doom.
The things that shape a person! Peace.
Depth therapy in early stages crowned
One fuming anchorite with river stones.
Remember, though, how in Thais
The desert father falls for the land’s lie-
That ‘grande horizontale’ (blown shawls
Shining and raveling to this day
Above erosions in her pot of rouge)
Whom any crossing cloud turns dim,
Ascetic, otherworldly, lost to him.
By way of you a thousand human
Frailties found in me their last refuge.
The turquoise lodged for good one night
In a crevice where the young blood drummed.
Discharge, salvo, sulfur ringed me round
Below the waist. I knew thirst. Dawns,
The viceroy’s eagle glittered like a gnat.
Sieges like that come late and end
Soon. And we are friends now? Funny friends.
Glaringly over years you knit
A wild green lap robe I shake off in tears.
I steal past him who next reclaims you, keep
Our hushed appointments, grain by grain …
Dust of my dust, when will it all be plain?
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