Three Foot Shallows Drowner

What is there but hips and thighs 
To a black dwarf? 
And the rudimentary calls and crying 
Of sparrows swinging out 
Against the axis of her? 
What is there but singing up at lullabies 
To black brevity and the squandered soul? 
Anthracite too has its night—
It is fleshed-out in length, not light— 
And she, who should have stretched 
The farther reaches of her life 
To suck the top-most branches dry of fruit, 
Has limped the bird-worn refuse 
To a sour wine 
And, with slight amusement, seen it turn to vinegar. 

            “It could be worse. 
            I could be blind. 
            I could be blind and palsied. 
            But what I want to know is 
             Jesus: tall, or short 
            Like me?”

Crippled doves and wounded toms 
Have more in common than with others of their kind:
Petroleum drowned fish and blind 
Search out a final refuge in the Fisher’s net,
Where sparrows wind the coiling twine 
Of years about twin trunks 
Distended in Omega to support full fruit
On bonsai stems. 

Look-up then, dwarf, 
At where the night falls, blooded, 
Upon final lancets of the day, 
And see, along the gore of sun’s death, 
Him—the dead son risen—riding, 
Whose flesh, as white as flame, 
Is stretched to sheer, translucent sparity 
Along a nine foot frame, 
And—unable to ascend 
To palm, wrist, breast—
Reach down to where the pins went in 
And touch his name: 
Black Dwarf Jehovah—
Brother to your pain.