Flesh of Stone

i. The Silent God Your fist opens red. Red star on your palm, red stigmata - before Christ, you thrashed on the stony shores. Two legs, two rolling eyes: the semblance was the same. Only a curse of hard pebbles. For days you thrust and railed, then bled the memory out. ii. The Dream The stars are fixed. This world churns: it is spinning helplessly on its axis. Cosmic wind froths the clouds into an ulcer. I call you dead. Obligingly, you sew your lips shut. Long needle, piercing such flesh. Your fingers stick. They prune in water. Oh tough skin! Like all things, it melts beneath an unforgiving tongue. Waves roll like feverish serpents. iii. Perseus You, who loved your destruction: the bright flash, quick wingbeats, then the impeccable knife-edge. You loved it because it made you immortal. Cold uterus, what fingers crept? After a while, only the sea, rolling - rolling - inexorable as the birds picked your bones clean. iv. The Crown of Thorns It was purity that killed you: the clean arc of the horizon like a blade in your ice-white side. What purity, at last, for you? Snake-haired thing, dark thing, you crawl always with one palm toward the sky.