fire, or water

were this blurred, we'd be submerged,
stuck under the waves
with warping colours & corals falling away
from a certain blue surface, where white animals are climbing.
    hot & cold climb the same ladder into the eye
    and we see everything sharper:

today there are sky-flags, halfway tattered.
browns & sea-thinned greens, then reds & great flames
are traditional
but the starving stag, steaming in the cracked courtyard
says blue is autumn's secret favourite, the colour of bruise & ozone & iris.

a leaf can fall like a cracked mast, or a dead bird meant for the ground
where the plummet loves death's rest; or simply a painted sail
that dispels the break of landlocked bone
& breaks the windy hierarchy of leaves ― a mess of fire, or water.

but this wading one-hand-clap falls like a berry
too ripe to maintain the grip
of its slim stalk limb,
    here it cannot echo
    or be poisonous.
the hole in the flank of a hare is invisible from a distance,
where a magpie thrusts its utensils in to taste something drowned,
somehow hot from newly plugged blood in veins long as roads―

somehow cold.
the trees, lit fiery & freezing, gape empty in the dark-blue night like fish.