18 - Supplication to the Voiceless

From the time I was a child

I feared the suffering of insects,

bodies mutely pulped.

I watched the machinic clutch

upon a mangled ant, grinding

down last limbs in dogged

irrespect of its own dying.

With each burst bulb of

a laden wasp I waited for

some puff of their interior

mystery to be released.

But silent, they marked the

limits of my knowledge,

those wounded gods.

I pray to them daily for their wisdom,

because I want to be ready.

4 - Prayer for Stagnant Waters

See, a shred of police caution tape
yellow trampled and tucked
into a pine chip bed:
the quiet of crimes.
This place,
dappled with wrung lemon rinds
bottle mouths kissing through
topskin of pond green, bobbing
mallards
the madness of swans,
it swallows the dreams of wakers
forgetting iniquitous night.
At this humid shrine of the languid
I pray for my salvation:
Send my soul with the Gerridae skaters
cross the membrane of tenebrous deep.