The Word from His Mouth, It Is Perfect

as when afterward blood returns its stir
to the ear


though his salt still haunts the mouth


it is said
God spoke to matter


during creation
what was asked of it


and what sound came after
what remains remembered in flesh


of such speech


is it longing
is the birch its shape


curled bark a presentiment of pain
its whiteness


is it that of skin
vacant as the place he’d taken among fiddleheads


surely alone is the reliquary


I take to the river’s ruined mill
the town bell tolling eleven


is the bones I keep
behind words’ closed carved doors


if matter is the first martyr there is
nowhere left to go


hear me


my way alone
I bequeath to the compass


each step hedged between hours
I leave a lily


carried for the marriage of what turns away

First published in CROWD.