A Pre-Raphaelite Notebook

Primroses; salutations; the miry skull

of a half-eaten ram; viscous wounds in earth

opening. What seraphs are afoot.

Gold seraph to gold worm in the pierced slime:

greetings. Advent of power-in-grace. The power

of flies distracts the working of our souls.

Earth's abundance. The God-ejected Word

resorts to flesh, procures carrion, satisfies

its white hunger. Salvation's travesty

a deathless metaphor: the stale head

sauced in original blood; the little feast

foaming with cries of rapture and despair.