Conjuring of a Worm

She, suspended in the North Atlantic Drift,

in slippery whispers not yet soured by sunrise,

with marble slab and diamond saw

carved two fingers and a tongue and conjured 

a worm, not a

but made of mud, five hearts that

beat for nothing beyond the cage of its own

thin and thirsting skin,

writhing for any trickle of sweetness

of which the sculptress

finds herself bereft,

for no

would ever unfold the summer pear from its sheath

make of it a plastic bobber, make of himself a worm for

hooking fish, detesting them,

hurling them back to an always-black ocean

the ocean usurps the dawn, she

(what has she done?) falls toward it