Diego Enrique Flores, Bonfire of the Vanities (photograph)
All your words must bend
towards hope. Most
birds are no messengers.
Read their guts, then
fall asleep. Dream
avalanche, dream crowding
sternums, claws, the opal
of a replaceable eye.
Its glass shines clearly,
and in your stomach
the harvested hours
turn over, and go silent,
still born as magic. Just
tell your visitors, A poultice
for your privates, Ma'am—
this drink, if shaken, works
for fever, the night-destroyer—
say, take this and wake
in the morning more solid,
and they will, stand wet
and clean as a calf surviving
calfing, one who tries out
the ground. The star on its
forehead growing out. Blazing.