The garden admires you.
For your sake it smears itself with green pigment,
The ecstatic reds of the roses,
So that you will come to it with your lovers.

And the willows--
See how it has shaped these green
Tents of silence. Yet
There is still something you need,
Your body so soft, so alive, among the stone animals.

Admit that it is terrible to be like them,
Beyond harm.

this was how
i
liked her best:

pallid roots
spread
some soft wet
in their twain
drawing
an oral sepulcher
to dine
on hertenderleaves

(i bent my lips
in grinning countenance
at
that infliction
i did
visit upon              a
lovely sundrenched
tree)

Peel away my face.
Navigate. Search. Delve.
I want you to tear me to shreds.
Leave my parts on the floor.
Examine them.
And most importantly,
tell me what you see.