Life Cycle
From the scales of the fish
the feathers of birds
the leather of snakes
I grew to young manhood,
and the weapons of birth
shone in my eyes,
as if loving under the wet moon
and the lunging dream in the jungled room
were all I was shaped from scales
and fins and feathers for,
salt and water and leather,
as if, having hurled the looming seed
in the Other, I should fall back like my fathers
into the spume of the sea, the skin of the trees,
The skull of stone.