Mint cities, into death's silver,
the splendour of so many dogs on so many hillsides,
tucked redness, flickering green, touched redness,
fingering lilies, misplaced octopus tentacle
shoved suckers & saliva down
the open mouth of a rose.

Yellow cities, linked hallways,
hand-holding briar-walkers sporting an oath,
holding dim coals in their hands, black hallway
reciting. And the church alarms, and the grope
near the water fountain, and the secular bells,
and the magazine racks covered in wilted magnolias.

City horses, country horses, stunned ices
covering stunned ponds, smooching with bare lips,
lips barer than the first human, naked in a naked world,
and the baby-pink bats so gently
floating over the corners of the golf course.

Blue cities of the undamned, blue fountain
allowing a yellow flame between such frozen plastics.
Poles of frost are standing next to other poles of ice
all over the graveyard.