XVI


1

I wished to read once again those incomprehensible stories of lives undone by a glance, a promise made before no significant company.

2

The prolonged slither and click of the beads dedicated to Green Tara (image of the Girl Prince): their coolness and the scent of sandalwood.

3

How could I not take it as some kind of omen when, one after the other, two small birds flew, or were tumbled by the sudden breeze, against my chest?

4

Mould grew upon the food not accepted: I remembered the drakaina too numb with alcohol to transmit, hiding the meal that had been carried to her.

5

Marius poured blond hair through the circular gateway in the tree trunk (eye socket through which I gazed): within the bower it appeared as coiling rays of light.

6

The fox no longer outside my office: it had given a sign of disinterest when I remarked that I must work by starlight in order to make love in the day.

7

Each attempt at heathen government defeated: we exist through wars that would have made Pound rock with laughter.

8

No history but the history of secret societies: a contract agreed before the puddles in the woods, the snake I rested my foot upon.

9

The ground dense with roots, standing proud of leaf dust, such poor soil: nature gives the sigils we use to glitterbomb the city.

10

Purposeful crow, I gaze through a tongue of flame at the feather you shed: the needle of the compass points toward the star-goddess.