I
Animals in Venetian masks

stare through floral constellations;

a strange surfacing

of herbal machinations

and cloven-hoof memories;

a fondness, somewhere

for droughtless green. 
Look closer.

The skulls are singing,

more like bird-beaks than sheep.

Forget-me-nots break

across bone

as if souls commune,

call back,

jigsaw a collective self.
II
This is about a rasp of sheep;

a four-cornered star

shining the sacrament

of limited diagonals,

and yet, in sockets of dark,

a kind of backward birthing.
How to place gouache

and not annul the souls of sheep.

How to stamp passports

of those who dream the inner side

of crates—

a floating, rocking panic.
Their flowers are dispensed.

Ragged edges stumble

into blackened bone.

Quietly, they bleed

in palest pink.


Notes:

In response to Steven Holland, Monaro, 2001 Gouache on sheep skulls,

on welded fencing wire bracket 40 x 40 x 15.0 cm at Canberra Museum.