In Flesh and Blood

A flesh-and-blood timepiece
rings the alphabet.
Clouds breathe in the drawers.
A ladder climbs a ladder
and carries its ladder-wife
on its back.

Space is on its guard.
It no longer sleeps like milk.
It seesaws on the tongue
of a pious memory.
Space is well washed.
The nudity of a cross
the description of a tear
the description of a drop of blood
in a flesh-and-blood grotto.

On the noisy level of our century
a small lost string
starts telling us
that it had been used to make
flesh-and-blood pyramids dance
on their tips
like tops.

Give me some of your mountains,
you've got more than a thousand.
In exchange I'll give you
wind and wind-porcelain.
I'll give you mutilated trees
with lace hands.
I'll give you a flesh-and-blood crown
and a big hat full of honey.
And into the bargain I'll give you
one of my gardeners
who waters me day and night.

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