Nunc Stans

CODA

Her eternity

b u r d e n

eventually embodied

then unearthed

further impermanent

earlier galaxies

entangled in

tranquil veil

(sleep-genius

"cover me")

drowsy cherub

bearer of abeyance

our own aroused

avowal equal to

arborescence

spectral companions

lustral all

(scathe not

anything like resistance)

interiorized audacity

comprising time

current converted

as essential as

seldom understood

of this

earthly concealment

let me

grapple in silence

among therapeutics

(within gnawn song

nested reticence)

murmur after

grove extension

this rose

as was

with what allows

by turns

experiential grieving

must accrue

so muse how much

extinguished

why mimesis

status granted

each fixed

light-beam home

azimuth posture

impossible form of

coiled birth

enigmatic leap

speech stoops to

save us

so I as refuge

obsolete

domain around death

through slim crimson

a b s t r a c t e d

those tears

so much sung

to distort

another sovereign kiss

destination embodiment

my unlisted

simulacrum

suppose cosmos

in despair

craving empathy

our holy tether

give them

their ghosted desire

else deft razor

("do not rescind species")

animal people

here too prey

rising from light

where canyon embraced them

[An earlier version was published in The Alterran Poetry Assemblage, December 2002.]