Parading

and the voice of man was never dear to me,

is the covenant of night, crawling in my body

Like someone carefully not looking at a scorpion

Let others claim a higher love:

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore

The rock lives in the desert, solid, taking its time.

wide from the slowly smoldering fire

And where the sky’s a pale blue cup

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.

Like fossils locked deep in the folds of my brain,