Defiled stile of knuckled vertebrae
lanced by stinging nettle,
oblivious lantana, exquisite cleft

of hooves still thatched
with matted, beetled tracts
that fall apart as I shovel

rain-vexed ruins to the garden's edge:
what panicked gauntlet
caught and felled you here?

What winter ravening?
My throat is blue
with moving you.

Is suffering only brief as longing?
In your crushed
and rotted wake,

I see the body's inclination:
feast, scatter, crawl away.
Beneath the shade,

I rest my heart,
spade that cannot state its secret,
only lift it -