After the Trial

he wiped the back of his hand

across his lips and trembled
in the bone-bright rays of sun

that pillared the plaza.
The dust rose around him

as he walked forward, out
of town, remembering himself

as a child, lost in the rows
of broken-limbed apple trees,

fruit untouched and rotting
on the branches, abruptly

realizing that his mother
no longer searched for him, and

the orchard arranged the distances
of night ahead and behind him,

prying his feet from the line
he walked, and then displayed itself:

a multiplicity of blank, black paths,
while the stars, in their restless turning

turned away, all suffering
their ancient deaths at once,

and the wind, opening its mouth,
began pulling his flesh

from one end of night
toward another.