remnant memory

This remnant ark, this hollowed horse
where you hid to hear the owls and
squander blood in the begging bowl
of your hands, it is here you curse
with lightest breath, drift as eye-flicker
in tall grass by the creek with its moving shells,
it is here. Each torn day it is here,
you tick at it with fingers first dabbed
in stiff ink made by what you hold
in your palm, stain-wise. Ten thousand
light-years from now your mother scuttles
on her back to see what you saw:
a man in animal head, shaken, raw.

***

This is a revision of a poem that remains elusive. I doubt it is finished, or even barely begun. Something about an ancient rite is felt here. More than that I am unable to offer specifics. This will probably never appear in any collection, so I give it here a kind of burial.

desk

This wooden plate upon which you hide to see
what needs seeing, where you get up early
to hear the owls, curse if you must but whisper
and shake vines with lightest breath,
go then to the creek with its moving shells,
drift as eye-flicker in tall grass. It is here.
Each day it is here, you will tick at it with
your fingers first, dab them in ink made by
what you have in your palm, stain-wise.
Ten thousand years from now your mother
scuttles above the mud to see what you saw:
a man in animal head-dress, shaken, raw.

***

This is a draft version of a poem about which I am completely unsure as to final form.