Seven Worlds

God turns --

and the fishes dance

blue gold silver

beneath a yellow sky.

Another turn,

the boughs of thick trees

become as air:

invisibly light.

The third turn,

nothing but pea-green

lizard eyes

and cochineal blood.

The fourth,

an angel with four faces

tolls the caked air

with a dead bell.

At the fifth

there is only

a fagged-out planet

and the light of dead stars.

The sixth,

and it is said,

“the former worlds

shall not be remembered.”

The seventh,

and the land rests

on the mountains,

the mountains on the sea,

and the sea on the shoulders

of Adam.