SOUTHERN CORONATION

The hive crowns a queen
above the humping
mocking servants

"I dreamed of heaven
last night,"
said Persephone
to Pluto.

The scalpel in my mouth
makes whippoorwills sing.

As love gets lost
in the silence of days
I greet you

with that mixture
of hatred and apathy

the comet feels when it
defies its tail
with a peek at the sun.

There is a baby watching orchids
brown beside a cypress
in a cemetery

on a grave belonging to a mother
who had two abortions before

letting it grow inside a carved
entombment of viscera.

Scars match playlines drawn
in chalk beside a canteen

next to an auburn husk of
tourist in the graveyard

south of Arles.

 

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