The Eternal Son runs
to the Mother.
She smooths his brow
and bids him drink
from her well of hammered mist.
Come along, sweet lad.
Fog rises from the ground.
The fallen soot is just the dust
of a shimmering gem.
The black moon shines on a lake,
white as a hand in the dark.
She lifts the lamp to see his face,
the silver ladle of his throat.
The boy, the beast, and the butterfly
The sea is a morgue, the sea is a morgue,
the needle and the gun
These things float in blood
that has no name
The telegraph poles are
crosses on the line
Rusted pins, not enough saviors to hang
She blesses the road,
the robe and the road
and the noose of vine,
and she waits beneath the triangle,
formed by Mercury, an evening star,
the fifth planet with its blistering
And the soaring eagle
above into the west
The boy, the beast,
and the butterfly
She walks across a bridge of magpies,
her hollow tongue
fills the brightness with water
and in the wink of an eye.
One planet with a glittering womb
One white crow, one diamond head
Big as the world, big as the world
The boy, the beast, the butterfly
Quivering
Above the soar,
the blistering soar
Of the fifth planet
Wait, stop, don't forget
Don't forget how I played with you,
how I kissed away your tears.
Don't forget the white mouth
of the sun smiles on
his beautiful tongue.
A seed, a flight.