More than once I’ve asked a body to scatter
And have received that scattering.
More than once, a scar. More than once a scare-
Crow watching the corn of another’s body
Sing and break beneath my marble eyes, my exhausted feet.
More than once, I’ve been a bell broken
Against its own ringing. A kind of meadow unified
By the barest imagination broken.
Even if I could take the diamonds down from your hair,
Unsnack the woolen snood of desire
Worn about your head like a broken chandelier, winter
Leers at us from this spring’s browning
Timothy, the deer tangled in the tines of a barbwire fence.
The children in the creek mis-practicing
The baptizing of John, his head held below the water
Until a crown of metallic fish gather about it. How else
Shall ruin announce itself if not in one body touching another?
from King MeFind it in the library
Copyright © 2013 Roger Reeves
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.