1 If you play me then you Play yourself.  That was All the dead needed To say. To get the better Of time, we got better With time. I left my body And took on the look Of a man. I made him An honest woman. A diagram of this Sentence builds a Structure made from Wind. Inside of that House is a box. Inside The box is the head Of a goat. Inside the Goat: a knife’s quiet Song. The blade of Desire is the silver in My teeth. My mouth Has a certain ring to it. 2 I will take you now to after- Life’s kitchen, where the salty Girls cure meat with their tears. Only through time is time Conquered. Come correct. Come prepared to sit at the table Of contents. We bow our heads, Count our blessings like Little pigs, while the king- Fisher waits for a shaft of Sun. Sprint, said the bird, For the foothills of  truth. Stop, stop, stop, said the bird, There is mischief  afoot. Then We sat and ate with our hands, An entire field of wild thyme. When asked to choose a hill To die on, we wanted to kill The bird. To reconcile our pain We made the stars into a bear. Myth made all the difference. 3 If your wrist holds a five- Nailed star, clock the T. Who can open the door to night And not see themselves in black? Not I. For thousands of years, I have sat on a milk crate. Stationed at the crossroads, I sing: Bone. Bone. Bone. Bone. Bone. I don a yellow jacket and fox- Gloves to push out the sun. The morning is such a production. A ghost—aghast at the sound Of singe, a crowned knot of fire. There is no sense to be had In the country of our making. This language a garden Of strain. No limit Soldiers, we marched To the drum of empty Cups and if a spoon fell A woman was cursed. 4 When I was sold Down the river, God set down his book In the shape of a tent. That day I was born again, My limbs—American letters. The stairway to heaven is Yellow-boned legs, antiqued In their quadroon rust. At the gate to eternity, A lawn jockey grins, wide As the science of mercy. In his hands a badminton Racket. He swats and we See how they run, how Crickets gallop in the Dark like horseflies. Heaven is a thousand Chandeliers, every crystal A single body, each head A grizzly sparkle.