I begged you once to eat the leavened earth
which aged and became green by violence

You needed to be full and satisfied
discovering that my stomach had dried
which made you remember the excitement of life

One morning in the stems of aquatic ash plumes
that were rising and shuffling to create
a theater of artificial night, the arm of
the high sea hemorrhaged and
buried skeleton eras

We devoured the earth for love and still the Lord’s blue voice
was fathered like dust in light which we could
see only because of the Sun

Slowly ending
Your long fever blew the ash sickness
away and I wept watching
your perfect body disappear
into the shade of the bleeding, green forest