Do Gentry

Mercurius

I invoke the traditional god
of poets & swindlers,

the minor god
of those who wait:
astronomers & spies.

A contemporary described me
thus:

"She extracts the precious Substance
from the flesh of the everyday
as if lifting the spine and mesh
of delicate bones,
intact,
from a poached fish."

I say:
The spirit engulfed
in the flames of the body.