I could love a tree
They are rooted like me
Entwined with aloof rings
And morphine butterflies

We could never ensconce the earth
Not through running, dying or dreaming

If the world was an atlas
I would have abandoned it, grimy
Atop the sky’s inky armoire

I, encapsulated in her trunk
As if an echo in a domineering cavern
With all my vinyls, geodes, tubers
And she: an overpass over my heart’s
Poppy-ravaged gorge

Little tassels of sprigs
With a thousand moist eyes

Hips of my echoing homeland,
Heaving padlocks to vulnerable stars

And closing like a flower
Amidst mercenaries of snow
Impounding petals
Thieving stamens

You are the Libra,
Bosom of discarded eviction-notices
In the opaque chaos of shadows
And icicles sedating rivers

A blood-clod
Within the Red Sea
Where the vermillion ruler
Dealt Russian roulette to jets
Of rusted mouths,
Agape mines wore
In the green-lurching
Of tremors, amidst devilish
Axes that betrayed their
Pine-mothers with tendril whiskers
And resin coagulating
Into shadowy honey, amber diadem
For the nuptial ant-queen