You led me to my reaping,
speaking of my sublimation
as a kindness, a submission,
to be taken in tribute
in temple, in-brined
and indebted,
in you, a man of blue.
How you watched, fervid
and surface tense,
while I was punished,
by virgin reason
for your imitable crimes,
by those who held the sanctity of stone
more vital than that of body.
How I struggled
as parts of you mineralized,
in part, in parts that should have been mine.
How I fought.
How I tried and tried and-
How I railed,
to shield against the salt,
the water that filled me.
How I grew harder from it,
turned more a crag than ever
while you wilted.
How there was no more stone-walling,
no more snake in the grass rigor
left to fight against.
How my blood
called to vipers,
and my neck cut
to release wings, rose skin
tinged green and grimly set,
to make a stillness
out of a man.