The dead girl decks herself in redbud, red algae, red-shouldered hawk for you

She swims through reeds to your sick room

She burns sassafras in the mountain cave

She steeps black elder tea

She reads is smoke is smoke is smoke

She hangs gourds in a chinaberry

She hangs chinaberry and owl in eventide

She charms you with water moccasins 

She charms them from water from skins from cans of lard

She puts her fingers and tongue through a treillage of green heron horse nettle

She molds double vowels to her gums—sweet gum woolly adelgid

She speaks through fever dreams in tongues without skulls

She is like the blood thrown from your window

She greens your sunken chassis in splendor

                           o earthen vessel         o living water         o algaeic angel