the five cardinal signs of inflammation

beyond a felt-tip prescription for twilight, swoon, somnambulism
how do we find blow flies, gnats, electrostatic anxiety born of
mosquitoes, poison seeping incandescent from arteriole to venule?

this sunset rainbow flush and your radiance lank between limbs
recumbent in paddocks, beneath cloud banks, racing pigeons
alongside tiger sharks prowling subterfuge and assassination

match strike, tinder kindling, touch paper wick with
gunpowder, nitrocellulose, ethanol limiting supply

lacking oxygen you might discover untapped gas jets
a choke or strangulation around the smell of bone ash

as they say, “a singular voice” rasped with dragon’s tongue;
“not a chance to settle”, so now only wilt and lethargic simmer

Niagara, Athabasca, Bridal Veil, Angel, if one, if all, if flood levels
encroach upon home turf, Axminster, cheap imported linen, sodden
with silt already at window jambs, clay more than stocking-top deep

we strive with canthus, epicanthus, to drain our vicarious declination

what then for sour stomach and lumbar ferment, counterfactual fingers
lingual schism and pulmonary impermanence? what next for emergent
heliotrope, narcissus, frilled neck lizard, pallid cuckoo, giant water rat?

foot over shoulder to scratch, dig, kick back gravel, old leather, apricot kernels
feeding vibration below ground, geysers, fumaroles, pyroclastic lava flows

when swallows take to air, with swifts, with nightjars, and double exponentials
shatter feldspar, burn deceptively refractile anthracite, spline tentacular marl

until failure of reverie, the falter that whitens muscle stain, bleaches
memoranda inscribed on belly skin and eyelid and prescient intestinal coils

possibly you know whom I mean: under suspicion, facing remand
never enough gold, pure hard cash, compensation, notwithstanding
anticipated visitors, unchecked correspondence, a birthday cake

otherwise, you may recollect where whales once breached, evaded
predatory squid, exhaled songs of polar chill, limpid equatorial balm
from the shelter of kelp forest groves and prehistoric coral caves

disregarding the difficulty of silent movies, steam locomotives
hand-spun silk; and the trigger, the symptoms? spectral amnesia
algebraic insufficiency; the treatment? angels’ wings, utter vacancy