from Gutland

4.

to sink within him, hymn; a search of body in the stark
realism of concrete, cinders--those once small crackles
of intimacy, shuddering
fingers
left like milky crows
no noir too “light” inside
the frost
bury
a cocked smile--
the peevish last inch
of skin’s remnants
as questions, strewn:

have you slithered thru the sweat of my stare?
have you noticed the unsettled pulp of iris shoot?
have you tried to perfect to ugliness the twist of jagged
shrapnel in my thighs?

have you, have you not?

to perpetuate artistry in the suffering birds
that swoop mechanically into your p[s]alms?

this phyla of our animals/tongues
are asylums full of hydrae in the hushed,
rank honey from
severed
heads

& I bled you
out of every
orifice

-------photographed skeletons
clenched tight between your teeth
the counterfeit placement
of missing objects:
liver, bed full of moss,
pupils like blood oranges

cardamom for tongue, hydrangeae for each windowsill
without your name engraved deep into the grains
everywhere
like Beethoven

yet

nowhere like permanence
where blood swiftly changes route
like unsettled water