by Sylvia Legris
Glacier maybe. Unholy.
Wormwood of Garden and
Sea.
Mars-governed,
midsummer.
The muzzy gumline
summons
gods of bad dreams.
Earache-haze,
stormy stomach, mugworty
sunrise.
Tonic the waters with
febrifuge and
anthelmintic. Artemisia absinthium—
leechdom-ruse, gastric
subterfuge.
Take with wine for the
poison of ixia,
with honey for dullness
of sight. A crush
of buckthorn and lolium, rose-wax and fig,
for jaundice and gas,
dropsy, spleen. To slay
a slew of shrewmice,
prophecy of sea dragon,
brew with passum and saltpetre, rosaceum.
