Death and the Maiden

Weight of doves on the four-walled dream

crumples the dying night: in the sore

scars of the stars fresh brass splinters

sprinkle a caracol,

Prowling sounds of figures of tongues

in the far barred meadow; thick

star blooms spattered like breath

in the near grass: so: flush with the wood.

Tongues of the sleeping birds tickling

the dirt frame; here the tough digger

touched with his spade shuts

down the sliding hours

When the tongue is fixed on the spot

of the pricking star, the hurt girl

limps on her blamed leg: he

tracks her warm spoor

She is navel to knee thigh

to thigh, scratched by sharp

spurs of sight, she bleeds

on her side

She is wet lip to bare side he

leans her lamp on his back

brings his ribs shadows in bars on her breasts

His bare teeth kiss her scratched flesh

folds of her bulge in his

ribs print his scarred hug in this bowl of her

This is her where she moans

in the fixed wood, the bald hour

gives her that cracking fist

fit to shine or to soar

She and hers, that was her

lipped charm, restart the creamed stars

thus far tongued doves

dive in the framed dream.