Wasteland
Suddenly it’s my first Spring without you
And April perfumes through ice-shattered stamen,
Playing out the tyranny ofTheWasteland.
How many times must I put you away.
How many draws must I empty to rid
The world of your touch’s memory.
Ornaments carry your name’s topographies
As gestured shades in mycelial clouds.
Soil ferments the earth-notes of fungus
And its tone is the fleck of your eyes
Calling to me as it putrefies,
Risen inconsolably in bulging fruits,
Ossified and quickened from the dead ground.
It’s all been written before, but never
From the distillate of your body’s presence.
Recollections sublimate into polyps
And anemones of tuberous greens.
You are resurgent. You are malignant.
I am rooted in the debris of your passing.
