I. But from here, 

            I can see the door. 

                        I can see the floor 

​

of the first divide 

            before the heavens’ demise, 

I will be the snake that swallows heaven wholly, 

I will swallow it holy, 

            I will swallow it: Holy.) 

​

            II. But from here, 

                        there is no more 

                                    than the gild 

that surrounds me.

 

Starling in a cage, 

            who will you be? 

                        What will you sing? 

​

(Can you hear the fairies sing, 

                                        each to each? 

            Seed to futile seed?) 

They will never find the green. 

​

III. I have seen it. 

But I am a star in a cage. 

            A house in the fen, 

                        IF, WHERE, AND WHEN. 

I grew up in this swamp, 

a boy watching 

            silken tree breeding silken moth, 

                        cocoons unraveling in clever fey-fingers, 

who sold their silks 

            with bells and dead-ringers.

​

IV. In the Silverwood of 

the Crescent Court 

            banking the swamp, 

I first saw red. 

I first raw fed. 

​

(When I rose from the remnants 

of viscera, 

            my belly full of roses, 

​

The way the fairies looked at me 

was the way birds look 

at birds of a feather.) 

​

V. One day, I heard the fairies sing, 

A bird is a bird is a worm, 

            upon the firmament of the kingdom of heaven. 

I held firm: 

            I will be a serpent, if I must be a worm. 

​

VI. Unlike the fey, 

I have seen. 

            I have found the green. 

Severin, oh, Severin. 

You know that the heavens 

                          will not win. 

I will be 

Ouroboros me. 

​

VII. Chevalier Lacandola, 

Will you do more than-- 

            plead. When you know. 

                        When you know what I am. 

Inimitable, 

unforgivable, 

            and everlastingly 

                                    destined to be 

forgotten. 

​

The world will not remember me. 

I have made art: I have a legacy 

            of ripe blood, milk petal, and star scale.

            But there have been others before me. 

                        And there will be others after me. 

​

None the same, 

            but the same. 

​

VIII. I may die forgotten, 

            but it doesn’t matter. 

​

It doesn’t matter, as long as I am seen 

by Holy. 

​

Holy is a mirror. 

Holy is what I will become. 

Holy is what I have won, 

            and which you were given 

                        from the heavens, 

​

SEVEN, SEVEN, SEVERIN. 

​

IX. In Holy, I will find: 

            the shed-gold of gilt cage, 

                        the silver-eye of silk pearl, 

                                    a mouth of venomous design, 

​

And a fate to match mine. 

​

X. A fate to match mine-- 

we shall see in time 

            who becomes Divine.