The fog let in, it breathes
its smoke beneath the shut door
where—dirtcake, scarecat—
he lolls in his bad bed.
The paintings look down
on the piled planes of his bones, the oval
of his face drawn on the pillow,
white on white in the darkened dream as, years on,
and gone from the locked past with his belongings,
he appears again whole, holding my provisional gift:
pomegranate, the meat and seeds
the heart he eats from his knife.
from Inside Spiders
Copyright © Persea Books 2013
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Persea Books.