SOUTHWEST OF BABYLON surely the ewe lambs, ramming their heads into their mothers’ tits, can show me how to pray. i have been following their belched bleating across hilltops, me and my diet of dates. walking. stopping. grazing beneath an olive tree. stone by stone we make our way. i wanted to know where home…

COSMOLOGY  Cold hands—warm torso—time like an orange— time like a bag of salt gray oxen drag— How many years of salt? Then, one day, a shell.  And fire, where joints should be.A field of rose, a town  of anthracite, river of milk— a face that hisses, sizzles— girls who sort potatoes in the dark—I orient myself by smell. …