Your wings murmur hymns
that the dead return to life,
your body’s gleaming bean
robbing the rabbit’s eye.
Your feet’s rancid needles
rub ablutions in prayer,
anointing hog blood
or fetid patties of meat.
Bride of shit and corpses,
the living need your children,
gluey milk-bottles of maggots
to enact springtime in bogs,
blessing raccoon roadkill
with humming canticles,
ruby-eyed cherub, tiny Christ
raising Lazarus into blossom.
Eric Fisher Stone is a poet and writing tutor from Fort Worth, Texas. He received his MFA in writing and the environment from Iowa State University. His publications include two full length books of poems: The Providence of Grass, from Chatter House Press, and Animal Joy, from WordTech Editions.