Nights

Joseph Spece

          I
As with Franz Marc's Deer in the Forest:
one fawn is always closer to the Cubist
fragment of back and foreground than others, closer
to evolution through rupture.

          II
Lowly as gum, and with the same ruminant
consistency, I stood hitched to your bruises.
The hue of the thether so violet-black
I thought myself second to a king.

          III
Being a starfish radially cut down
to a single chunk. Then:
to grow back incidentally a person
without the viscera prone to othering.

          IV
The immolated dusk of a rich October.
And a dryad's long shadow recalls twice
the split xylem heart of her
owned sycamore.

          V
Aplomb & Interior. And I've—kept the dark soft and full for you
as flowers or red melon on the verge of spoil.

Volume CXVIII, No.1