ACTS

To begin again, the deepest palace must explode

unnoticed. A slow release

will always leave the one who authored you afraid.

That was legion talking from my head,

the beast. I would burn

the pages, all evidence my sentence stayed

to cheat my way inside a shadow of the rock.

POUND

Unobvious site of anchorage, as Erebus was

an isthmus zoned only for sacrifice.

I envy Odysseus

that inundated shelf he slaughtered

the lambs on, if nothing else a place

to have knelt down, awaiting the shadow

instructors, an apparition anywhere

the ritual touched, their footprints

brimming with blood.

But the flensing is never finished

when the offering outlives its mystery

recipient. Tiresias starves, doubly

damned, whispering

                                          SERVIAM