Mandrake

the clock o’ one in

the beginning stung

every little son

on red flannel fields

the fabled wayward

mind gone craquelure

unsteadied the view

of flowers sprawling

on the starry mask―

if the inhuman

fabric falls away

this late in a life

shows blackly the back

of the remotest

odorless lurking

not this no not this

is a pretty truth

in the ancient sense

vicarious not

hard to disbelieve

‘til the tentacles

of it clutch the breast

and seethe there   pulsing

   inoculating

cool poison   wherefore

should they not so do

now little mandrake

at the clock o’ two?