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I am the wandering soul, the lover of Beatrice
watch the poem panel out under
rag moon, spittle played through my spleen
let’s drive into the desert and die
there we can see water on the road
there we can become folk songs and wilt
as drunken boats saddled into the sand among the birdrot
I am a dead poet lifted by this desert wind
I breathe the desert breathes back
see my pasture, swollen with beer
to water its plaster trees
I see a grave, its dead leaves
to cover me: sloughed winds
I can’t hold them
the moon is never sudden through the water
I see dead winds pull lilt waves
what power is it to hold these? winds
yet dead in the sparrow’s lung
pull them out—into the light
let death take these birds
and I’ll harvest what’s left of their song
give it to the dead crutched through me
me through the poet
I want to speak
I want to fall in love again
but some gummy poem
gets stuck in my throat
I fell down in the forest
I felt the grass milk dew from the moon
why can’t I?
I am a poet and I will die
to make this forest grow
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