The eternal sun runs to the mother She smoothes his brow and bids him Drink from her well of hammered mist Come along sweet lad, fog rises from the ground The falling soot is just the dust of a shivering gem The black moon shines on a lake White as a hand in the dark She lifts the lamp to see his face The silver ladle of his throat The boy the beast and the butterfly
The sea is a morgue, the needle and the gun These things float in blood that has no name The telegraph poles are crosses on the line Rusted pins not enough saviors to hang She blesses the road the robe and the road and the noose of vine And waits beneath the triangle Formed by Mercury, an evening star The fifth planet with its blistering sore And the soaring eagle above and to the west The boy the beast and the butterfly
She walks across a bridge of magpies Her hollow tongue fills the brightness With water and in the wink of an eye One planet with a glittering womb One white crow one diamond head Big as a world big as a world The boy the beast the butterfly Quivering above the sore the blistering sore of the fifth planet Wait, stop! Don't forget, don't forget how I played with you How I kissed away your tears--don't forget The white mouth of the son smiles On his beautiful tongue the seed of flight