Always wombfulness to go by,
if by means aciding
the anchor’s chain. This lexicon, this

porridge—it’s simple:
delicious says quiet down. But so
the tempter returns,
the world
turns fungus, the soil

its hop,

and then—bacterial sky,
sycamore’s parchment

like slits in the whatnot. Zany
how each breath palpates, becomes a soul
or doesn’t, how sounds
repeal themselves

in a muffle like traffic, the sky flaring
its nostrils only
to jimmy up
the mudlurid. Take the garlic mustard—
Alliaria officinalis,
its liverous collard-veins—
press it to your neck. Hold it

there. See,

the rain hasn’t arrived, but sends word
of its departure
idwardly.