Only the true of heart sleep beneath trees now.

The civil went and built walls,

          built a fire inside them.

Reluctant and cold, a woman resigned herself to your bed.


You’ve earned the sweat in your neck’s meaty folds.

On the sixth day, I made you.

             Now you multiply

a whole other annihilation

                         inherited from myappetites.


So when you prop yourself

          on an elbow

                      in the quiettwilight,


like a weevil in the germ of wheat


harvested from the garden that once grew all over,

riotous with rain,

            deranged,

                        busting at theseams with everyday honey,


crawl out of the husk of yourself,

look with your scythe into the future you’ve planted.


Look with me at what resists your mouth:


the glossy skin of the pear you picked too early,

the white unripe flesh packed tight against its seeds.