After the Catastrophe

fingers are slipping
gripping
the spongy blackened wet-rot logs,
and deadwood shed from sad and naked trees

And sun sets

And head turns

As dark fibrous slime finds its way into my skin
where rarified tears despoil the fine nacreous filigrees
which evening had accreted there

Now moon and stars have come and gone
And new ones move to shape the next strange state
Tracing the loops of a lemniscate

(1985; incomplete)