Eternity’s Poem

The ripe, floating caps

of the fly amanita

glow in the pinewoods.

I don’t think of the eventual corruption of my body,

but of how quaint and humorous they are,

like a collection of door knobs

half-moons

then a yellow drizzle of flying saucers.

In any case

they won’t hurt me unless

I take them between my lips

and swallow,

which I know enough not to do.

Once, in the south I had this happen:

the soft rope of a water moccasin

slid down the red knees

of a mangrove, the hundreds of ribs

housed in their smooth, white sleeves

of muscle moving it

like a happiness toward the water,

where some bubbles on the surface of that underworld announced a fateful carelessness.

I didn’t even then move toward the fine point

or the story, but stood in my lonely body

amazed and full of attention as it fell like a stream of glowing syrup

into the dark water, as death blurred out of that perfectly arranged mouth.