"Love of My Flesh, Living Death"

after García Lorca Once I wasn’t always so plain. I was strewn feathers on a cross of dune, an expanse of ocean at my feet, garlands of gulls. Sirens and gulls. They couldn’t tame you. You know as well as they: to be a dove is to bear the falcon at your breast, your nights, your seas. My fear is simple, heart-faced above a flare of etchings, a lineage in letters, my sudden stare. It’s you. It’s you! sang the heart upon its mantel pelvis. Blush of my breath, catch of my see—beautiful bird—It’s you.