January Rain

But fetid liquor                   A fetal spirit
    I rain on the earth,               I lie coiled in the ground
        dissipate                          expectant
    in the besotted earth.             in the wounded ground.
Woven tendrils,                    A spindled soul
    tangled tentacles                  mucilaginous;
        suck at my substance,              rewound on its spool,
    my cohesion a vain defense         a vine twice-spliced
Foiled by gravity.                 Entwines my entrail.
    clotted in the earth,              I recoil at the sound,
        desperate                          extracted
    in the veins of the earth:         and spilled in the soil
A fibrous liquid.                  insipid flux.

(1992)