box of jars

christopher bock
Madrigal (remix)
Two trees undress their winter leaves,
stripped tip to stem. We watch them 
from our window; you smoke.  
One withers, the other persists. 
It leaves rain spots on yellow leaves. 
You smoke out the window. 
Disinclined to shine, 
the moon needs 
a restless love bone, two flies 
to skim the surface of the river. Above, 
the moon hangs 
like a voodoo doll. 
Below that: a burden of fish, 
deposit of shoal, where the same fish  
one day will sprout legs and walk 
as man walks, unafraid. Numb-drunk 
on the madrigal, you smoke like a fish,
puffing out your cheeks,
puckering up for a kiss.  
Smuggling bones below the surface, 
the river needs its delta. 
Love needs nothing. 
We spoke about it last night 
as you smoked out the window 
our fingernails curved like two deltas 
written in lower-case Greek.  
You wore yellow, and I didn't notice
you undress—you need to bone, love. 
Your fingernails 
dug two letters addressed to the moon 
into my skin. The moon, our god, 
never received them.
He didn't respond. 
Either dead or disinclined to shine 
on all the silver-flecked fish in the sea.