Look on me dearly:
your stolen sullied sullen

daughter. I could dig you up
to hold your bones but

want only to wash myself
away, like white foam

from the seashore.
If I burn what is buried,

is it cremation
or disintegration? You would fly

ashes in the wind, like a wish
given

lift, like an altar of lit
incense.

Think of learning of your blood:
yellow skin and rice paddies

and great-great-great-great-granddaddy
grey for the Confederacy.

Do two halves not one whole
soul make? I take

a breath
and leave it

free.

May the gods drink deep your blood
and may the crimson please their gaze
and may the iron scent whet their lust
that the taste may sate it
for you are my greatest offering.

in time
the lens
turns large and flexes
small
and the colors of hands
the shapes of days
stains
the wallowing stream
the hanging chord
for god is change is time
is infinite is ends
is frozen is stagnation
is a self
a sculpture in ice
glittering melting
a tale the same
in every telling
till
gone.

The shadows move in circles
as the world does.
As we live
it spins
_

it moves through my fingers like water
leaving no trace except
                                          that evaporates.