Marzipan

By Paul Cameron Brown

1 A thick hole in the dark from which stars pour silver as in pails their runny divide ink-strewn scalps torn from the roof of the sky. 2 Padded footprints giant ferns blooming constellation prints, the wind an athlete pacing about a track drying thru fingerprints thin, nectarine light. 3 Sand down whitest skin moving past your hand a gown, mauve to green, iceberg lettuce, the black festering across a ribcage; while night arranges moths to dusting powder pucker-lipped fronds from afar 4 Afar, the word a gypsy tangled in the waves, foam from a medicine bottle agitated and strewn, bubbles calculated in gasps light into the distance forlorn tree-frogs, the cricket sound round deep - movement of night as a rumbling in the ground,