Crone

They have to keep hammering

louder and louder to wake her up.

It should be easier

or impossible - the hands frozen

to the book a cross swaying

from her neck.

And the deaths of saints,

the women young, virginal.

The membrane hardens and whitens

over the interior garden.

Soon we will have to imagine it.

Lack of a source:

no water springing from the middle,

heralded by death.

Such a paradox.  To live

you must die,

empty yourself of all desires

but one.  The liquid

drawn from the cactus.

The purple desert flower.

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