"The Palace at 4 a.m."
The Palace at 4 a.m.
Mother, I am going home, through the great, transparent,
ear-hanging tents and darkness.
Overhead and antediluvian, bird with hollow bones
made for flutes rakes the sky with its teeth.
My heart is made of an apple, instantly full blown
and ready to be cut.
I have watched the digital afternoons blow away
like pieces of smoldering straw into an amputated sky which
ignores them.
I want my bath now, of raw ambergris and charred cloves.
And stroke my sister's chilly backbone,
picked clean of meat, while I watch them take her head away
in a basket of brown roses.
In the ruthless attic, an antediluvian bird
rakes the stars, like plankton through its teeth.
Mother, I want to be born.
And a massive hound, bearing a stomach of coals in his mouth,
knocks on the door with his wooden head.