Listen:
a convocation of desert eagles rises from your spleen,
each one carrying a stone—this one to mark the blood
leaving your body, your face now a milk white grotto,
& one from the basilica in your heart destroyed, in part,
by your own uprising, & one for the rebuilding,
& one keystone for the door of humility that prevents
others from entering on horseback, one from the depths
of your bowels which are the shepherds’ fields, one
from the cave where they buried children if one could use
buried here, one from the settlement, from the valley of fire,
the souq, the emerald-domed city, for the fresh catch
(your great grandfather’s favorite), one for the sky-
rocketing population, one for the giving & one
for the taking away, one for each name for flock:
a conclave, a radiance, a swim, for each name
for flock you now know: congress, flamboyance, siege,
sedge, scattering, for each name for flock you
now know & use as a remembrance: an omniscience,
a rush, a trembling, an ascension, a colony. One
for the first city to fly the flag, the world’s oldest city,
& one from the cistern, dry for millennia, now beginning to fill.
for my children
