Above Heroic (Though in Secret Done) Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain You must wait for courage or grace but fate Is stubborn. Waiting is very long, like exile, And is walked in steps, solitary. The Lord’s world lies before you, but all is war. A bulldog ant bites its tail just as the tail stings The head, multiplying curses. Earth tacks to your toes, dust sticks to your face. Strong light beats down; it burns your forehead As in wandering mazes you roam. At dusk

Contraction After the fusion of blood and tree, I descended, the voice of derision singing in my ears, past the wet-green eyes of my mother, down, past dry lips of statues, falling, through open doors, through graveyards, junkyards, a quarry of dry bones and fridges, past train-wrecks and dead horses, down, past falling towers and exploding engines, down, through smoky forests and palimpsests of mud, through florid rings of fire, past the crushed flowers on the hospital bed,