What of the secret,
esoteric meanings
behind my commonplace,
lingering doubts.

What if I wanted
to hide like a child,
in petals that pink or blue
like litmus papers.

To become hidden from view–
culled instead of called,
this would require the naming
of things, original sin

a garden where scent flows
like an ocean through sky.
Oceanus, the great body of water
encircling the earth.

What of Jupiter–
a body too large,
a would-be second sun.
Of Venus, displaced by Aphrodite

or Psyche. Mars.
Like fragrant gauze roses
five planets line the sky.
Experimental, a cluster

Father searched with the lens
he ground by hand
through the feather of atmosphere,
the welt of sulphur

lent by cities.
Occulting light,
as of a lighthouse,
a lightship–the period that equals

or exceeds darkness.
Magnolia, complete.
The air and I, an aria.
Saturn, a yellow disc

tilting, alleged, supernatural.
All magic.
But suppose the teeth fit together,
the jaw closes on another lie.

Gas, liquid, or solid,
petals meet where the cusp
of moon fits exactly
into the spine of a fir.

Met when the warm front,
forced aloft,
surfaced, and the thunderheads
jagged, spiky with lightning, resumed.

Lightning forced back into the earth
after Paradise
was finished, before the animals
acquired their names.

Because then and there, neritic,
plankton was born,
zone in which the concealed
covered the ground.

Not to prevent the graves,
the ever-smiling teeth.