What numbness strung
lateral like

a taproot sky,
where we assemble the lone

and are among them.
Sovereign of the dead, who

would rise to greet you
with these tall axils

appearing before:
needles like sea grass,

low now in slow rot
brown with the early

spice of itself?
So now

my human eyes
are yours

blue-violet and strung
to ground-clover.

As what is
myself, forgive me—I am

a violent
faulty thing.