ST. ANDREWS
1
holy relics splattering snow-white on every rock
death’s house number at the street’s end commotion
so uncontaminated it can only be seen
downward-slanting dripping steps of stone
go on dripping in a downward direction
bared by degrees the ebb-tide of the heart’s ruin
I thread my way through gravestones shades
crowd in crawling over a blurred inscription
of the smallest James
stroke by stroke stone paints the bitterness of flesh
rotten beneath green grass the scene’s decoration
is an exquisite imagining of the eye as a gash
sliding seagulls study a coffinish
wide open linguistics of motion
the god we choked leaves a jet-black door of stone
and that faraway indigo slash
is pure and perfectly simple gradation
notched inside the gaze the other side of emptiness is the ocean
