In the seed of lilies
I buried you serenely
we loved each other in old belfries
years unravel
like old lace

I look for you everywhere, God
but you know it’s too little
I buried you in November
when school girls went to lunch
they didn’t know you were in the wagon
else they would have cried

the pain was overthrown into the parents
like defeated floodgates would tumble
of paper, your old flesh
how else would it be?—yellow and sad
and I loved you in the violin of becomingness

autumn widened its wound on the country
slowly unbuttoned its bosom
and will go on unbuttoning its cloak
like the violin of the boat broken from its masters
will unbutton in a body of blood its flesh
which calls me

we wandered so often on the dike
through the wind that brings ships painted white
and props in lung ash a hook
but the dike is the snail’s path
from God’s heart

my thoughts wander off—like grazing sheep—in boundlessness
in a flute on the plain cry sad parts of a biography
I’m drowning in hopelessness of seismic phenomena
and on streets the wind runs like a chased dog

II

astrologers have secret meetings
in one of the emperor’s chambers shaped like a honeycomb
where they fashion the future into prepared events
to translate love into pain

III

the horse is eating night’s snake
the garden put on imperial decorations
starry wedding dress—let
me kill in infinities, night, your faithful flesh

the village fool, she’s brooding clowns for the palace