Sacred Defoliation

after Vallejo

Moon: Crown of an immense head,
you go shedding leaves in gaudy shadows.
Red corona of a Jesus who thinks
tragically sweet things of emeralds.

Crazed celestial heart,
why are you rowing like this, inside the cup
brimming with blue wine, toward the West,
with that ragged, agonized stern?

And gliding away for no reason,
you are holocausted in scattered opals:
You are perhaps my gypsy heart
that wanders in the blue, weeping poems . . .

(Previously appeared in: Argestes Review)