Aurum Foliatum
The blood of the leaf darkened and
clogged. It is now elegiac, subtle, brittle amber. Christ
stands cracked and blackened in the altarpiece.
The dry leaf is the theory
with which oil matures upon his body.
Time, quivering comet, travels
the resin. Wounds it in stelliform scars. Scorches it.
And the scorches have the smell of wood once smelled in the plum-tree.
When from those branches knees of bronze
unfastened and marked the ground
as battlefield
where still the wind comes and blows
like Resurrection’s afterthought.