Nick and the Candlestick
I am a
miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy
stalactites
Drip and
thicken, tears
The earthen
womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat
airs
Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld
to me like plums.
Old cave of
calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the
newts are white,
Those holy Joes.
And the
fish, the fish----
Christ!
They are panes of ice,
A vice of
knives,
A piranha
Religion,
drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and
recovers its small altitude,
Its yellows
hearten.
O love, how
did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering,
even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood
blooms clean
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to
is not yours.
Love, love,
I have hung
our cave with roses.
With soft
rugs----
The last of Victoriana.
Let the
stars
Plummet to
their dark address,
Let the
mercuric
Atoms that
cripple drip
Into the
terrible well,
You are the
one
Solid the
spaces lean on, envious.
You are the
baby in the barn.