Today the world’s Van Gogh smoke
and my heart is a raisin. I listen
to Schubert’s Goethe’s Erlkönig and sizzle,
anxious unto urchins. An elf in my lung
spits into my birthday cards. Blue silk
hydrangeas loom over my right shoulder;
mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh’ es genau,
es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau…
And yet, I can find no sturdy evidence
of a curse.   Radiation at background
levels, buboes numbering none. I open
my mouth and a ball of mosquitoes
rolls out like a dandelion’s head,
Medusa diffusing. Thunder’s rubber
 aspect, the way it cups the heavy parts
and rattles the corals. Gastropod,  borrow
the shed chiton of this bitter oath,
live your empty life, sentry of the shallows.