Scarecrow. Robert Fernandez

      fruit the time has darkened, blue,

      seven panes of glass crushed into the roots

      the time is deadly, a coral snake

      and we adorn, we adorn

      if i offend you with my leniency

      If I offend you with my leniency,

      I am like a bird with smoked tendons

      roughening the hues, fanning my eyes;

      my love is a red die rolling in the void

      —

      And who whistles the empty

      pot that burns in your kitchen?

      Everything screams

      pointless and damage

      damage d-a-m-a-g-e, I

      see a kite stuck in a tree

      I see a hand thinning and

      portents dissolving like fat

      —

      I cultivate a certain dying I find it

      rare, that is my way; I comb it

      with exceeding carefulness from

      my nerves, delicately as a kite

      —

      I am the brown bittered

      fig skinned with tomb

      leeks in brown sauce

      and a winking eye

      like a suede curtain

      —

      and am soles of the feet

      gold that clicks

      its tongue against the roof

      of the mouth rafraf rafraf

      the dauphin

      Sometimes

      you have to break him

      before he’ll ride,

      —

      Sometimes you have to

      braid him

      before he’ll rye

      —

      Sometimes a smile sits

      in the center of the table

      like a rare roast beef

      —

      And sometimes tragedy is lop-

      limbed sometimes plates of spa-

      ghetti spaghetti spa-

      —

      Ghetti and

      strawberries

      in black bowls;

      —

      Sometimes

      cabbage and

      black liver

      —

      The Dauphin sez “blood in shaved ice!”

      or “blood shaved down to

      a black carriage!”

      —

      The vultures hath; they are wroth;

      the ghouls are broad shouldered and recline

      comfortably across our stomachs

      —

      Never never never second-

      guess yourself, sez he, whose teeth

      shine and brown like butter

      a vein of earth

      What force in flies? Are you