Alchemy

Knit of warmth pulsing, rooms of days
doors closing one by one—the threads fray so soon.
My eyes see, my eyes forget.
Under the bedside lamp, I pray
whole notes, long silent hosannas.

God, I gave birth because I must—the seed is life
after life—but I am a gray pine
upended in the snow, boughs prickling
the universe grave. Stardust crowds my follicles,
order ripples the celestial water and my hair.

Mars, frozen, winks at the halved peach
dripping, the blue-green cousin,
flesh and scaly pit and stars from seven sisters,
all of them mine.
They beat the distant skin drum.

In a thrum, in the color of thistles in a glass,
I rise in the earthen kiln wait for something else
to emerge from the heat, echoing me.