by Sandra Miller

    if we weren't made of soot which we highly suspected/respected

    in her garden she had no garden

    we did not love her we did not let her picture fall from our wall

    forgive & foment no one kissed me where

    like bad jewels good black dirt

    what song can't do & does magnificent thumper in the wild

    'the secret blackness of milk' 'sordid intimacy of the abyss'

    when it became a corolla flickers

    you are like an angel yelling for

    attention still more still

    my lamentation is as perfect an almond a shell

    her eyes an altitude amnesic lover

    gathered her skirts to the blond chapel

    altarbirds follow us herehere herehere