Oraisons Funèbres

Without Sanctuary Alone

Without sanctuary, alone against

the roar of polite society, he built

a sanity of his own. His imagination

became a place devoid of sound, all

color sunk without depth into grainy

loams and clays—shape and breadth

forsaken upon unbridged roads cut

with heavy, unneedful gestures into

his earthwork heart. His treasured

death was the blue neck of a peacock

—electricity laid out with formality—

kept

in a sarcophagus under rough granite.

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