The Medal
You arrived like an odd insect
That, upon extending its wings,
Belongs to all yet to no one in particular.
The grapevine beetle knows
That its time was summer and locusts,
And that before that sweltering heat and that music
Life is a bale of hay, darkness, and a thin membrane.
It recognizes a purple shell wherein
The female, quietly lurking,
Yearns to be fire and fruit.
That summer of nineteen hundred and something,
I withstood the calumny of my life
Like an emblem of molten silver,
Without shade, but rich in fruit so sweet
That milk and honey were nothing.
Milk, honey, streams
