A tree of blood has stained the early dawn

where the new mother groans;

her voice has left sharp crystals in the wound

and on the window pane a print of bones.

While ever faithful, the arriving light

hushes to white boundaries of fable

the quiver of the veins in their flight

towards the opaque coolness of the apple.

And Adam dreams in the fever of his clay

of a child who galloping draws nearer

in the double throbbing of his cheek, towards day.

But a darker Adam in his dream is turning

towards a moon of stone, seedless and neuter,

where the child of light will be burning.