After, Joseph Leidy
1.
The string is a catalyst not

a specific set of instructions.
Of afterlives, she has

empirical evidence,

                        in spades.
Still it defies you,

this canopy of velocity.
Nothing for it but to endure

newfangled brocade deliriums.
Instincts on rampage

balk at investigation.
Cellular memory recoils.

Brackets repress

                        a more mysterious lacuna.
Bruises bloom under coltish grace.

We might be vicious
                        down here

the shock stays with you.
Altars float all around her

            wilderness,            waste.


2.
Sunburned girls gone horse mad—

seized with mirror fever.
It only takes the once.

                        These days,
she drinks laudanum

laced with charcoal.
To obliterate an upbringing

a sedative of false composure.
Leave the door ajar,

hips tilted toward
widening aisles and bed

dust wound down.
The patient cuts her hair

in the waning moon.
She is permitted to shower

once per week. Under guard.
Miasmal fashions cut

for the asylum panorama.
Such whorish artifice;

horizontally alarmed but
demurely absent sentiment.
            Come home,            her dialect mutation calls.


3.
In his experiments,

a fine wire was made
to encircle the shaft of bone.

Seemingly, in its interior,
a hollow columnar condition. Lost

thumb that cuts into an absent palm.
After the water cure only

blood attar dulls the fits.
She’ll be in the sunroom

dressed for the weather
arranging seating charts

for the dead letter dance.
The only party worth

attending is a funeral.
I know too well the cost

of that remedy’s call
bright placebo ghosts

            (scarlet and subaltern)

lost to verso charms.
Will you remember me

after the wintering sieve?
In a diversity of baths

wet dressed penitents
salute their redeemer

in three-part harmony.
Such reverence breeds

only dulcet curiosity.
Enter as a bullet

sequestered in blind faith.
Leave her floral marginalia—
just another face

            for to be                        burnished in.