–   watched the sky turn woollen

   –   skinned the thickened belly

        slabs of the season’s cold fat forgotten

   –   looked with purpose into the blackening eye

   –   conversed with the mystics on

        the unavowed language

   –   ate sweetmeats

   –   surrendered, surrendered

   –   sought consolation in the body of another

        my eve closing into itself

   –   erected consumable altars

   –   reasoned with the prophets and

        confessed nothing

   –   suffered in the sternum and

        coughed up my own good blood

   –   plead for a purpose

        anything to pour this devotion into

   –   what use is an unrelenting endurance

        if i have nothing to offer in return

   –   i want to make it to the fawning

        season

   –   watch the river rejoin itself seamlessly

   –   where the body blooms warm and

        bloodless

        where the earth opens like a father and

        i burrow against it