Nothing but clay –
beneath these clothes is skin
skin tissue
tissue bones
– and clay is marrow;
nothing but clay
and heat and heart
and earth
and hearth.
Cherishing bones
borne into limestone
– elephants and hyena –
tusk or shin, claw or incisor.
Cherishing words
full in the mouth
– warrant, root clay –
the casts of heart muscles,
the lycopod stigmaria.