Fact is, a soul at fifty comes unstuck.
Fiery flakes of it haunt a magnolia tree,
Haunt it, not the sootless way
Square but derelict lots of me
Perceive it.

Ghostly sputtering touch
Close to the crest. Then roots run out
Licketysplit and hobble me.
Am I the matter of my doubt.
A joke apart, glue to my tree?

Ivory blooms, undaunted, one flesh,
Dry as they look, bathe in all
The popular damps that entangle me.
A sweat of terror breaks my fall,
Upward, out of the psychocrypt.

Fabled scavengers, make room, 
You turkey buzzards inking out the skies,
Avert your crotchety stare, if you can,
Save me a vastness in mid-air
To fuel my eyes.

Unfold, rainbow. Never enough. Some fifth
Element, neither a clod nor an empire
To float a gaze or steady a hand,
How will it beckon home, into the open,
A star stuff all other acts have orphaned?