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Some cultures have long believed that high flying carrion birds transported the flesh
of the dead up to heaven . . . .
World door, crimson your geometry.
Our flesh ascends the heaven-road. The air now thins.
Red-hooded Charon pilots us in spirals, laboring
Up to the precincts
where stars commence.
As words that are unspoken, he bears us in his mouth.
Entrails & viscera, we are the salt tang
Of sinew, of marrow, of the word made flesh.
A jigsaw of syllables to be arranged
Once more to human form. The sky gods await us there.
In vast huts & tents
they ready their tools.
Brother vulture spits us out upon the tent floor.
We writhe & quicken to verb & glottal.
Eye socket, nostril: they mold the clay. They bestow
The mouth from which we words shall burrow.
Introduction
Something of Us to Prove Our Afterlife: Notes on “Ochre”
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements