In the Drents Museum

The rope, it is a breathless yes
fingers press into this windy
oboe my throat—one woolen
waistband slip-knotted on neck
keeps me warm below twelve feet
of peat, lineless, a convalescent’s skin
only mud the boy-doctors dig into
unearthing each indivisible number.
How unlike the bark of that beetled elm,
its jagged beams and flagging crown
fine as the hair of a queen anemic—
But to be mistreated—This caused my beauty—