Halo of insane tongues, mortifying
mantle, sanguine pearl on a fingertip,
God Almighty’s Cow: very unlucky
to kill. A children’s verse once told us so—
Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home—
but that was before they invaded by
the thousands (or rose from their native soil).
Furred windows, the crunch on the basement floor,
the crimson glass of them, bullet into
the lightbulb, boat of a body floating
in the evening wine, wafting in the waves
made by the vain scoops of my silver spoon.
My enemy, my enemy, I was
in a habit: to hold you in my palm,
to say a prayer, then to push you aloft,
the veins of your inner wings visible
in the sun, to seek my heart—call my true
love from the faithless town. But I vacuum
up hundreds of you now, millions, alive
or not, I don’t discriminate, even
though, as I pull the cork on another
bottle and the year deepens to the dead
season (oaks brandishing their leaves, poison
ivy bright as any artery) you
coffin my door, bloody my sills, and I
hear you rattling (or is that the news turned
to low?), red cells pumping, little army
in a lightless chamber, restless as sin.