Supple-Boned Gods

Supple-Boned Gods

What shout did you hear when you were born old men
when your skin was stretched and dried on sticks, your
teeth another's tool, were you still content for small things,
or is there merit in your art? bone, cup, or crucible?

Twisters from my seven best holy wounds
swell at the soft center and crust along the edge.
I read on my sheets what I always knew,
every spouse's mud daubed stick in place,

every made up stuck together surface of youth
traded flattened overlapping crooked cut middle
age stretched still supple on sticks. Come down.
Come down. You long-chinned gods,

level with your hands soon forgotten unions:
the famous who print flyers to their fame, the
broken who do not break till they are grown
and family to their hurt;

women who never gain the matter,
men who never pierce with their effort,
where every eye is turned and body opened,
shudders fall and fade to black.

O supple-boned gods that had no youth to climb so high,
everything I could work out was before me once worked,
everything I could love was before me still loved;
my human hand a hollow wood, my intrepid flesh

all clock front no wheels inside.