Author: [[Nick Roberts]]
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Hollow, hollow, brush
here come the reliquary police
here come the men in their bonnets
here come the hawks singing dixie
here come the tailspinners, the weavers of velvet enfrondants
here come Benedictines, Franciscans,
Carmellites, Poor Clares, Lutherans, Buddhists, escapologists, Holy Rollers
here come a dozen good ways to commit suicide
here come the brash and the shy together
here come men with tetanus rust
here come confidence men with the news up their sleeves, farting and hacking like cancer
here comes the breath that from my son reeks
here come those with mosquito bites
between both breasts, forming a sacred skinline with the nipples
here come the mosquitoes themselves, proud and demoniac
here come several good tables, borne on the backs of several good midwesterners
here comes a tow of sugar ground from the head of Lot’s wife
here come Lot’s daughters, swollen and omnipregnant by Lot
here come permits and licenses and other accoutrements of being
constantly stapled punched stamped and consulted
here come six poets you know, three
you like and three you don’t, tethered to each other and
forced to read each other’s work forever
here come banners behind them with the poets’ names
here come muttonous gluttonous backpackers and eaters of sin,
cameras out and hairtrigger fingers on zoom
here comes the dead captain, his boots
swollen around his ankles like a little yellow bird
here comes the yellow bird, mindless in its tower
Pavlova, fabulous aviatrix of the west
steps over the newel with her left foot
and lands footfirst in the ore
coming over the newel like a flurry of
hard sponges
two huge drafthorses with their heads out
way down south to Fort Caroline
way out on the landing, her hairs pass
glasses in no colony
Pavlova, your famous ancestress
doesn’t eat the scallops left for
her, but turns them over and looks in the scallop butts
And she leaves behind her plate
all its flensing and fletching
reflected in her hands and eyes and toes