In the curled leaf of your eye, still full with sleep

The morning has holes
Like a summer leaf
Withered by all those excesses
The swelling lymphatic process
Curtailed again, in that shirking act
That ebbs in sacrifice
Closes, a bent fist
Inside the marble of your eye
Thought you had turned the world
Inside out, the moon-thin meniscus
Serpentine and fluttering, in return from sleep
For that, the ocean dark below
All the pooling magma
Defying sunrise (you said the name
Of some lost shape)
Between wakefulness, and
The still suffused surface

By the enclosing sea

At the beach we fall like Carthage
Tasting salt
In the dunes butterflies grace
Small stars on the bramble bush
Bright as copper burning
There is no one here but dreams of wanderers
Worn as sea glass
In twisted nubs that fire never made
Green and agate against your lips
A taste like mermaid skin, you say
I say, as if
For curling winds
We bow our heads
Your face big as the sea-lorn moon
Pocked with hollow frowns
A garland temple on your brow
Pollen on your breath
All fell down
Two mouths make butterflies, of course
Flying away
In utter blue
To wind-torn speechlessness