Think mercy balanced on its
treble notes, apotheosis tipped
soft-soled, petal-skin sheaved
like pressed beads on salt flats.
Hidden for years under pious
slabs, it stirred halo-hooked
with silver scratches of sundials
caught ineffably dearth, fertile
soil spread rot like seven years
farmed out in beetles and rain,
sucked in scent of burned drift-
woods. Then the glowing hours
streamed from the ends of their
fingers wreckage torn salient
pale, with the dark already gone
out of dull eyes, drifted back
to the terminus of annihilation
on taut, splayed wings, allayed
as a graceful arc of light cast up
nerves’ panoply, between buds
of resilience and yielding, as
the earth returned to the folds
of gospels and prayers, forklifted
serpents to its wingspan mouth.
In Between Hangovers 