25. The Blood, the Book, the Book, the Blood, the Blood

The rupture and the black blood.

The rupture and the falling
and the black blood flowing.

The rupture and the falling
and the dying and the black
blood of the earth flowing on.

Come to the opening of the earth,
the dark vein spewing into
blue-green water and ice. Come
to the opening of her dark vein,
and her black blood flooding forth.
Come to watch her die.

Build your beaches with birds
and fish. Build your beaches
with great grey birds and fish in
colors like the sheen of oil
in water—a green, a blue,
a yellow, red, the melted rainbow
and the dead. Build your beaches
on the sand so they’ll soak
the blood all up. Build your
beaches white as rain so
the black will be your stain.
Build your beaches in the dark.

She bleeds a black blood, black
blood, black blood, into water
green as eye. She bleeds a blood
as black as you into water
blue as eye. She bleeds black blood.
She bleeds black blood. She bleeds
black blood and never sleeps.

When sun is high, she bleeds
her blood, the flow of blood in plumes
of words. When darkness holds us,
she bleeds her blood, the surging blood
in sprays of flowers. When you are sleeping,
when you wake, when you walk your way
to work, when you breathe and when
you dine, when you hurt, and when
you can’t, she bleeds and bleeds and bleeds
throughout the month, throughout
the day, throughout your
parties, throughout your tears,
through the rupture in her spine, through
a slit and through a hole, through a turbine’s
spinning thrust, through your dreams and
through her throat. She sings of blood
and bleeds it black. She sings of blood
and bleeds it out. She has no heart
and yet she bleeds. The bloody water,
dark with blood.

The black blood is spreading
in submarine night. The black blood
is spreading over the dead. The blast first kills
those who are sleeping. The black
blood spilling kills what’s left.
The black blood spreads in balls of blood,
thick fists of blood, in stagnant blood.

Clean every bird and clean
every beach, and the blood
it’ll stick to the hands
you are reaching
out to the birds and out
to the sand. Clean all the water
and clean every breath,
and the blood it’ll fill it
again then again. Clean every boat
and clean every fish. Clean
every evening and clean
every day. Clean every cove
and clean every bay. Rhyme
every word and rip every meter,
and still every hand will blacken
with blood. The rot of the earth
it’ll stick to your hands, the rot
of the rupture will lurch
and will spew.

A tincture, a poison,
a pigment, a paint,
it spreads out in curving fingers of ink,
extending in colors that darken at day,
the figures are swirling and airy and dark,
they flow from a vein
deep in the water,
deep in the earth,
deep in the core of everything left.

The beauty of rotting,
the beauty of death,
the beauty of hoping,
the beauty of not,
the beauty of yielding,
the beauty of flowing,
the beauty of flowing,
the beauty of flooding,
the beauty of flowing,
the beauty of blood,
the beauty of blood,
the beauty of blood.

Breathe without water,
breathe without air.

The rupture and the black blood
on your hands, on your coat, on your
head, on your hair, on your throat,
on your knuckle, on your knee, on
your foot, on your clothes, on your
coast, on your water, on your air,
on your fish, on your fowl.

The rupture and the black blood
and words against them
flowing and fleeing and fleeting,
forever. The rupture and
the black blood and the blackened
words and the blackened depths
of silent waters where words don’t work
and the voices of plenty and the barrels
of empty and the blood that flowing
and the plume that is ink and the ink
that is writing a story for you.