A sudden brightness. Call it day.

closed since the Germans left the neighbourhood,crumbles in the pouring acid rain.Above, no bells toll for its dead; but stainupon stain marks the stones where Mary’s scarfrests at the bare feet of its heavy rood.

sister to the crow,she does not hear me weep.A continent away,a sky and ocean apart,I am her last born stray,I with my leaky heart.No, we won’t ever meet,resurrected mother,the shoes now off your feet,with father, uncle, brother.

pushing the clouds above the forest glades,at last free from desire, no longer pinnedto gristle, sinews and a skeleton.To wake again, the water underwingblue grey until the morning shore and sun,the crowns of elms and oaks now wavering,the pearly gate inhuman and aglowupon the mossy hill, the crystal formsembracing April rain, the drainage flowflushing flotsam…

of fasting, coated in an afterlifeof sweet confection. But the star is dimin the baker’s eyes. Camels and a roanforever near the marzipan manger,and in the otherworldly glaze, dangeris as heavy as a sepulchral stone.Indeed, no mouse made of raisin can budgestill eternity to suddenly movea disfigured nostril or candied hoof.And the unborn child? How…

and those once executed.The scientific gainbelongs to us, but who knowsof Giordano Bruno’ssuffering on the square,tongue-tied on cobble stone,as he met fire alone?Around him everywhere:wine spilt amid the jeering,grimaces and cheering,squeals from a paederast,smiles from thieving hawkers,bishops, whores, and gawkers.—“Into the Tiber, casthis ashes! ” —could be heard,“for every wicked word.”

Spear in his hand, he waits in silence—frost on his chin, tree bark against his ear—dreaming of aurochs, boars and mammoths,last week’s kill the muscle in his barrel chest,flint still red with bison blood,shaft reeking of skinned hides. And there it is.He thrusts his spear into the flank and neckof a stray woolly rhino. In…