moray

in which you enter me
reversing the performance of birth

in which i am whoremother—
apocryphal & magenta with swelling

in which the body in its brutal baptism
is dimed ingot, beetroot bruises, peach-pit haloes

in which we are palsied by the purple delirium,
faces of profaned fish puffed with arsenic

in which your childhood home is a deer
sleeping in blue thistle rime of a cold gun

in which nothing but the inept carpentry
of our jaws : sawdust & sandalwood ringlets

in which the haunting turns bright as a pornographic
strobe. its bulbous abdomen, its retching bay

in which we are between an othello rose and thrombosis
our eyes red with thirst; our mouths turning into magnets

pinned to arguments, their light years dwindling to dwarf stars
that cannibalize each other with the blades of unmeasured gravity