arcane matter out of place

1. the gatherer, hunted

Waking, I rise from my earthen bed,
my dayskin sloughing the dirt of sleep.

Grass blades tremble, and I sense you in the hedgerows,
returning from your circling, and I have you
in mind, in the hard light of out-there's bareness,
your blunt teeth glinting, your bowstring drawn.

My areolae are taut clouds, swollen
with a promise of rain or arrows,
my downy navel bared, anticipating
the homecoming of our hunger.

2. the hunter, gathered

As you take me in hand, the melon fire
of your touch sublimes my mind to black sugar.
Your bespittled palm slides up the underside,
swelling me like fruit after fallen rain.

I am ready to fall, bursting to be
gathered in by you - sweetening your hunger,
becoming your belly, enriching your skin -
diffused throughout your blood

until you, yourself, are fallen fruit
nourishing the body of the earth.

The only sane person in the room,
you spat upon the holy
bread, abandoning the work
of the sun and its agents.

With our appetizer out of the way,
the waiter offered to take our order.
“A Thinking Hospital for me, and
the Lord will have a Razor and Twine.”

As he backed his way into the kitchen,
I thought of when I hiked across
the deserts of Pangaea, expecting
to be eaten; and how the universe

is one blind, insatiable chemical
reaction, the formula of which
is hunger; and why some snake
devoured its own tail or pale-skinned

humans ate the New World whole.

As my attention returned to our moment,
you had received and cut your twine, making
little nooses for the patients in my hospital.
I suggested that, perhaps, we should say grace,

but that was just my lost argot
getting the better of me again.

Hieronymus Bosch had overslept.
   Proud as a goat on a badminton court,
                        scratching and stretching,
straining for equanimity
                        between sleep and waking delight,
he knew he was late for his appointment
                        but did not care.
Finding his tin can with string - a gift
                        from da Vinci - he spoke:
"Baltraffio, I'm on my way; I'm coming with!"
     (His dog quizzically sniffed at the other
can on the floor.)  He kicked over
 a candlestick in his first stumble
     from bed, stepped outside,
nude as a witch, and mounted
     the pope's dead elephant, Hanno

        the all-knowing and diligent,

          and rode off into the flaming house.

Let us swim underwater, letting water
           be the medium through which we divine
                     the swimmid kiss of our breath-held skins,
                       aqueous and ultra-sensate.

Let the skein of water, swelling, enreeling,
      lure each into the other's dream,
            from whence we fish emerge to devour
           one the other

  on some fernid, Devonian beach.

She pulls a late shift on the dreamline, frying
                        canola for canola's sake, taking orders
                                   from the starving saints in the pleasure-
             cloister of her sear-wizened head.  Her onion
skin crackling, pungent yet pleasant, when fried
in the oil of her sweat, staining erotic aprons...
Brow furrowed, in a trance brought on
 by years of labor, she conjures forgetting,
  beautiful in her ranginess, unaware
   of the spell she has cast on me - longing
     for the hours of her knife, contemplating
    the craft of sacrifice.