Likestarlings

Irene

Beneath the spasm,
a mountain.
Then no mountain.
Roped at the base,
food and decorations in crepe paper.
Ever-root, ever-rot, wait
for my skin to turn to moss.
I've gone off to live
inside the white room of a coconut.
The hand-painted sign in the tree
says, "Pretty, pretty please."
I can only take this to mean, marry me.
Time for some bitter truths.
I'm already up here.
Charmed into inscription, into pilgrimage,
beginnings and endings on the tongue
where words carry whatever message
or marvel, the release of light, the spark
given off from the glint of a beetle's back,
smoke that isn't smoke but rising sand-cloud.
Grit far from the oyster shell.
The reed never looks away,
having no bed skirt or companion
to share the seeds, the ribs
of a jalapeño pepper used according to recipe.
Pickled in its own brine, the cereal grass
as a different kind of birth, serious flooding
in the Nile valley, or in the prison's courtyard
jasmine buds unveiled as currency.
Don't make me prove myself an oasis.
The wine watered with more wine,
the palm fronds braided into pyramids and crucifixes-
the cup so full it's bound to be broken-
the small Coptic horses who have yet to learn
how to rock on their planks, ever softly, the traitors.