SHOATS and GORSE

Shoats and Razors

Milk teeth suckle whey slop with marrow
And you pule and yawl like a wan calf

Tongue keened on the whet of my back
Sharp as razors and shoats bristle

Tope Fingers

Tope fingers
And blue stone eyes

And your mother’s frail stitching
On hem

And collar

Nametags and curlicues
All but forgotten


Abbots’ Weed

Abbots’ tongue molt with scurvy, gorse
And creed

Sodas raise hackles and welts

Supplicants

Leavened on rye Melba, quillwort and scolding
Tonsure-comb separates right from wrong, sin from succor

Pumpernickel from flesh