Foremost in slaughter, Jonathan
                  Dipped his lance
Idly into a stray honeycomb

That far rise drifting in its first mute buds
Brightens and freezes through binoculars,
Shadeless grain of the giver. As if grown

Is this my blue portrait?
Are we living on a dark continent?
Is this my portrait against the darkening year?

I watched Preacher Benson plowing his back garden with a mule
to the sprung clacking of the screen door,
and it’ll sound that way when the century turns.

Somebody takes a photo
of the little girl in a witch’s suit
and it stays in the corner of a mirror

As a child I would awaken,
midsummer, cicadas buzzing
their alarm from oak trees whose