Olivet

Tree rock, root rock, blackstone bed 
where we slept, watchers
breaking lookout

While olives, bats, dark stars
hung quiet in the trees, blind
but waking into moontide

Silver the backbone ridge
of stumps, of naked tubers
& we lay beneath this spine

Above, a boulder, a skull
shone white like a goat's belly
tender side up

There too a knotted heap
of body, knees and forehead
a crop of stones

Cold as rubble on Olivet's peak
& not willing to rest, he planted
bloodflowers on the hill

Which at the first sunstroke
we woke smelling: salt, licorice, iron --
bouquet in a deadly cup