WOUNDED
—to Laura
Bleating thing without wool
Thunder without sound
Ghost of wooded peaks, of constricted arterial waters
There is a dog inside the heart, voice bursting
Interminable silence, blown-open iris
Over organs buried deeper in the earth
where capillaries of roots still bleed orange dust
Leave me be, hot tongue of fireflies,
cracked pharynx of ice
Do not ask me to slip
down among green nerves of water-weed
where the flesh of the sky
is unmoving and fruitless
The moon still hovers in its surgeon’s coat
But do not try to satisfy the dead
who hold on with claws like desperate fevers
Leave my sutured skull of empty ivory forever
But pity me; put an end to this much hurt
I am love, I tell you
and all the quick wings accumulating
as restlessly as the breaths
that were once inside
these wheel-crushed, wind-scattered leaves
