Laocoön with Persimmon Pomade

A thousand Icaruses fall like snow into the snow-melted seas

I would ask you, sir, to consider that:

all that fell, all that you did not care about.

Corteccia’s Gloria Patri is slowly gluing together the sleeping words

from inside its glass storm.

Night falls through the fingers of night.

How must the past have looked to you ? All those small arms sinking

into the black-hat waves

all the cries that you whistled through

all your tirra lirra crooned into the mouths that filled with ice.

And even if they were later dragged to the surface in a net, 

you could always turn to your mirrors, turn and sing something 

meaningless. Tirra Lirra.

What I have learned is that I did not come from you —

You who were so lost that even the dead

                   couldn’t come from you.