Thursday, September 11, 2008

i.m. Reginald Shepherd, 1963-2008

Reginald Shepherd

Probably Eros

The whole is not his fault, elegy
full of small bird and the light
starting to starve. Gods are sucking off
gods in alleys and I call it spring,

a gap between catasrophies
until the day I am a tree. Afterward
they smoke clove cigarettes. The reigning
bees, the rain he’s been, the present

tense ripples into form: front yard
sunflowers fascinate tomorrow’s August, days
dry grass and filled with old news, new
spores. Dead ladybugs smear windowsills

with laws of wall, good fruit become s fuel
will turn to ash: turn the latch. (Seasons
pass through me like flaws, rattling
rust-worn gates, dried gourds.) Birds

are chirring branches green and the bees
want to have sex with them, all things
are full of monetary gods, world-sick
with ritual outline and poisoned

by too much song. The beautiful
boys ruin my sky, raw meat wrapped
in silk and spoiled milk: boredom’s
ache in the shoulder blades, arms

raised in the epiphany posture.


[originally published in Verse]

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