The animals are ironed, docile now, flat at my feet.
I was uncertain of certain mythologies,
Invisible as the milk waiting to happen
To the newborn litter of opossums.
In a brief violet hour, this time
Of year, the one-winged lapwing tries to fly but stands
Still on the stain of the small accumulation of what was.
Be good, they said, and so too I was
Good until I was not.
It was a time when all the heavens’ spare, used vessels coffin-
Cornered down a narrow well of hills, would pour out
To the open sea like a swarm of mourning cloaks, unmuffling.
At the inn, the servants fawn on me. The coachman, vexed,
Treats me as a hummingbird outside its whittled cage.
An hour in the afternoon of a lark.
There I slept in the gold folds of the executioner’s robe,
All that fabric spilling
Out before him like unbundled honey from its jars.
I am alive
Now. It is the first night of the year. The air is salt
Even this far inland. I wish on a planet, thinking it’s a star.
On stars you can wish.
There is little left of this, already
Some ilk of lemminglikes
Disassemble on the hill.
It is not volitional.