In the secret conversation between a house
and its collapse, how do you figure?

Not swan-like in
your stillness. Something

primitive and ghoulish
in your tendency to blur.

In a crowd of women
with flowering heads, how

does a neck
become a question?

A swag of sapphire hair.
A hem a hemisphere—

dear fox,
dear ghost.

Stitching threnodies.
A reeking empire.

A deer. A dough
to cut your mouth on.