Roots

I put down my graceful roots
in the secretly famished land
where attendants eat my ear
and the sky has holes.

Invisible warning of green sucked
into blank fury
and tumbling blackness forever--
the black-hot eternity of hell

no one will speak well there
or battle back with colored clay,
checked ribbons and tablecloths,
wine with dinner.

In this universe of freely enterprising
explosions and hurtling fire
we are the ridiculous.

6/1986