She wonders why her pale Orpheus
doesn’t have any money and she covers my eyes
with a blanket of yellow leaves.
It’s a cool way of replacing the gold theory
of playing inflation with sugary skin,
of playing collapse theory with dead jaguars.
I hunt the peacock. I drown in the future.
I read the jaguar’s intestines for signs
from the future. I read poetry
even though the fire rope is around my neck.
I feel like gold with the rope around my neck.
I feel like quicksilver is sliding down
my dreams about playing hide and seek
in the ruined theaters. I play hide and seek
with my fingers because ruins are pornographic
when lillies are trickling out of my mouth.
I make an image of myself
with a red butterfly on my forehead
where the blood should leak out. I make an image
of myself enswarmed with butterflies
at the deadly feast. Don’t asnwer my question
I’m making an image of your wound in nature,
black nature, idiotic nature that can’t be
assimilated through art.
Head: take it off. I’m channeling a gold
deity because I can’t stand the spectator
who supposedly fears my mimicry.

Originally published in White Wall Review 40 (2016)