trudging in stoned, moss-covered blisters,
paths cross hallways of deflowered stumps.
I sat on them all, wagging my finger 
at the crusty trees they used to grow,
poking the decapitated worm
with my left-most foot, shoeless to stay.

to sanctify this excursion, this stay
in the skin, breathing in life through blisters,
I fed another wriggle to the worm,
taught it the manner of abandoned stumps,
who, like best people, forget to grow,
but relish the admonishing finger

of the lumberjack, jazzed up to finger
the forest thoroughly, just to stay
astray from the crow's bid to grow
the poisonous black rose that blisters
the stemmed wilderness for the stunted stumps
it delegates to the eyes of the worm,

man's apprehensive sieve, drivel to worm
into hearths of pastry wives, whose finger
fulfills a thimble, wandering: " what stumps
my husband?  what prickles him to stay
still in the corner, staring blisters
back into the walls, when out grow

the pus-packed pillows, out grow
the children of the chaste warrior-worm,
fighting the heartless chambers of blisters?"
the pallid man fornicates and fingers: 
"a tree bears a spring leaf like my stay
bears from my tree an eternal stump

till stubble-fields become ocean-stumps
becoming dazzling foliage.  grow
grounded branches, saute the stern stay,
excavate, hook into the writhing worm,
swim to the bouy-eyes in your fingers,
sacramental gills eaten by blisters -
 
the stumps of Eden cast out the worm,
seeing ribs and nostrils grow fingers
that stay to milk the sap of the blisters."

11.3-4.98