Two Poems After Ovid
in a moment she was seen and loved and taken —
in a moment I was past the roots' last reach
past seam & cinder-slag and the reeking
dark cradles of stars. Cold hands on my face.
Up there the field might blossom into flame;
wheat blight seep & stink like bloodshot eggs, but I
am just another bead of spawn gone down,
another slant of shade for evening's husk.
Do you use the word ravished ? Do you still imagine
flesh rent by thunder, the breath of a swan,
a ram's brute advances; or do you recognize
his frail caress, now oxen drag their broken plows,
now turnips are skulls in the earth?
and [Ceres] beat her breast & tore her hair. Where is she?
In the deep seam. In sulfur. In the marrow,
dust, onion-rustle, beetle's skin & cache of seed —
Lost calf in a dreamy well:
Bawling. Then quiet. Here I have
no lips no mouth no tongue to speak with
Lost daughter who the mothers call down rows of days —
I forget the upper air. I drink the dirt
will you find me
when winter wants its draught of pollen
when the plow is crossed with rust
will you push the earth aside
in a moment I was past the roots' last reach
past seam & cinder-slag and the reeking
dark cradles of stars. Cold hands on my face.
Up there the field might blossom into flame;
wheat blight seep & stink like bloodshot eggs, but I
am just another bead of spawn gone down,
another slant of shade for evening's husk.
Do you use the word ravished ? Do you still imagine
flesh rent by thunder, the breath of a swan,
a ram's brute advances; or do you recognize
his frail caress, now oxen drag their broken plows,
now turnips are skulls in the earth?
and [Ceres] beat her breast & tore her hair. Where is she?
In the deep seam. In sulfur. In the marrow,
dust, onion-rustle, beetle's skin & cache of seed —
Lost calf in a dreamy well:
Bawling. Then quiet. Here I have
no lips no mouth no tongue to speak with
Lost daughter who the mothers call down rows of days —
I forget the upper air. I drink the dirt
will you find me
when winter wants its draught of pollen
when the plow is crossed with rust
will you push the earth aside
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