The Jealous Minor Gods

I have hidden your lost teeth in the net of all my famous hair And with foresight promised your umbilicus To several minor gods. I paid your fee in fawn skin & the lightest fringe of tissue, all the quiet noons assembled, In yard stars & the light of phosphorescent pens, The dioramas that it takes to fill lacunae, in ancestral knots That tell the story of our humble people: watchmakers, Mainly, ventriloquists & scholars of quintessence, Amateur lifeguards I meant to surpass. How I loved My green & distant futures! But I love you more From late Holocene out to the farthest buoy, unto Blackmail & a verb that means renouncing Christ Or else describes the path of sap before it’s amber, Before it dimples, just a little, to collect —