Alchemisland

Verily like that which a crestfallen Scottish king might see

Webs in trees which wend and bend yet never break to breeze.

I sift great debris. I lift a sad facial fragment, mostly undamaged.

Death in threes. Destined to fall like tested leaves. Kept in a freezer

Like taxidermy an unsqueamish intends to attend later in the week.

A tally of my weak ways waved before my face

On tear-slicked torn receipts I paid for in the first place.

Wheat’s curt swaying

Life’s verve cut as it amazes.

When one gives only what one receives,

The whole world gets an apple from Eve.

Leaving Eden always happens

In every timeline.

In every lifetime

Unhappy until you I find, mindful still, a Tiresias

In the perilous chapel’s easeless confines.

A single line this border-making, order-highlighting finger of mine drew

Unbroken from clod-strewn cot to rose-hot tomb, until mauve’s maroon.

Once my doves were lovingly glued, gloved, I swore to the sporting moon

That I would more produce than these crumbs; Proust’s reverie induced

By what remained on a plate after chewing his food.

I trace my scathed and skewed breastplate, asking myself what I’m doing

Tomorrow’s huge but it is denuded yesterday, occluded and confusing,

Holding the ring of keys. A ring of gold thrown into the sea

Or into an eel-spiralled lake’s old bowl, as a votive. Something I wrote

Which only I know

I know my wish is coming through, I hear the proof: divine high notes.