i.

i swallowed a shard of glass

which grew within me

into a towering tree,

not a poison tree

but one of delicacy

& it remains to this day

bearing no fruit, turning birds away,

pressing on pink tissue

sharp and subtle

as Death’s sickle wink

ii.

sun&stormkissed men aboard

a boneship thrash to&fro

within an impossible glass bottle

which is me, made of me,

i am God-as-a-bottle;

their ale and piracy slosh

inside,

as they gaze up at my clear body

open their mouths,

call me Sky

iii.

Johann Becher lost his mother

exhumed her tempered body

from pure earth, cast her into

a furnace and so she emerged

an inghistera in which he wept

a wet shrine she could drink

iv.

a nobleman sleeps on a gathered bed

of hay, fine

like a snowflake set to stand

on a singular

point

for he is a pitcher

filled to the brim

with him

self,

he fears being snatched

by a night mare,

taken to a grand ball

to be served as refreshments

or worse yet,

to be poured

across the floor,

his molten naked

body to behold

v.

pretty ladies fill me

hold my stem be-

tween thin long

fingers sip dark

sherry and merlot

as gossip slips

my blood kisses

stained soft lips

vi.

Charles the beloved takes cover

under the skirt

of Aunt Berry

as four wild woodmen

burn,scream

see four flaming genitals

fall like roasting

chestnuts

&

when he resurfaced from that

billowing oven,

he was stiff

as a windowpane,

a crystalline

spidersweb

as flesh effigies

immolate,

Charles the mad,

forged

in the fires of Fear

vii.

i wake,

dream&real run together as amorphous batter,

dizzied and blearyeyed i sigh, breathe relieved

that we and i and the world is glass

as glass

cannot be mistreated like love,

cannot be tasked to lift a shape of steel,

cannot be called ugly without irony,

for glass feels no shame

when it comes

crashing down