Eden Incunabulum

"As his unlikeness fitted mine"—


so his luciferous kiss, ecliptic : me
         pinned beneath 
                lips bitten as under weight of prayer, Ave—but 
                                                       no common vocative, no 

paradise above, and we not beholden 
         to a name, not 
                to a local god banking fever blaze his seasonal malady 
                                                       of flowers—nor to demi-urge  

nor the lapsarian system’s glittering, how 
         later we spoke 
                between us of sacred and profane as if the numinous 
                                                       could bring death—the only

system—to bear burn outside 
         him 
                and hang its glister wisdom and singe in the viridian wilt. Lilt, 
                                                       to break salt in that sugar  

where skin was no choice 
         and sanguine, not 
                blameless, though, Ave, I loved our words for want 
                                                       beginning liquor, squander 

sip and fizz : fuck, ferment 
         I loved 
                and bluebottles tippling windfall rot, bruises’ wicked wine 
                                                       gone vinegar 

beneath the taut brief glaze 
         of wings, but 
                it was not yet nameable, what we later called disease : script 
                                                       brought us by the trick 

snake’s fakey Beelzebubbery. 
         In the dirt 
                with his dictionary skin, tight skein of syllables knit by un-
                                                       numbered undulating 

clicking ribs, the snake slunk 
         and stung 
                and spelled the dust with his tongue and tail and was nothing, 
                                                       a black forked lisp 

in the subfusc grass hued 
         blue as the blue 
                sky tipped its lip to ocean horizon and filled, hugest 
                                                       amphora, and sank, 

evening, Ave, I will tell you 
         now I loved it
                all. That in his hot body there was something similar 
                                                       to the idea of heat

which was in my mind, 
         that when we 
                alembic, lay together, we bequeathed the white 
                                                       fixed earth beneath   

ardent water and a season’s kept 
         blood, and I not 
                a rib of his, not further hurt in his marrow—for the idea 
                                                       of death was in him, 

the only system—and we lay together 
         in the field 
                that was not yet page, not begun with A—, not alpha nor 
                                                       apple, not Ave, not yet 

because what we knew was 
         the least of it
                then. It was difficult to sleep with the love of words gone 
                                                       gospel between my thighs

where nightly he’d jack   
         the pulpit, Ave 
                Corpus, Ave Numen, gnosis and throb unalphabetical, 
                                                       I will tell you 

I loved it all, fastest brushfires
         and dryburns	
                his body’s doublecross, garden lost to loss, incurable
                                                       season : wilt, lilt : singe,     

our song. And the snake,
         lumen skin 
                of alphabets, rubbing his stomach in the dust until his tin 
                                                       eyes filled with milk, 

his slack skin flickered and split
         and new 
                black sinew out of the slough dead lettered vellum 
                                                       legless crept and let fall wept

whisper, hiss, paperhush :
         with the skin
                language left behind I bind time to memorial : Book of Our 
                                                       Garden Hours, illuminated 

bloom : Here a gilt script singe sings of heat 

         split in its leaves, 

                and the bee gives suck to the book : Ave Incunabulum, love’s 

                                                       first work : Ave, 

                                                                   In Memoriam— 		
		

                                                        [ J—5/99 ]	



Incunabulum: a book printed at an early date (esp. before 1501).
"as his unlikeness fitted mine"—from Tennyson’s In Memoriam