SYNAESTHESIA

Nipple to emerald, rose to mercaptan, hell
to the Aurora's curtains: and how far
from Re to Mi? Your sex to Satan's fell,
drew by the glow-worm to the dying star,
and Beatrice to Lilith: count the kinds,
if they are there for counting. But I see
feathers and farms blown by ill-matching winds:
nothing can differ except by degree.

Give rabies to the rose, castrate the gem,
drink the bright vacuum, burn out of scale,
open your thighs to spectra; closing them, 
shut-out the beetle, snuff the linking Grail:
the paradox of species will not stand.
So, naming love or Love - take Paul or Sade
for the pure A - only the staircase hand
can teach our strings how harmonies are made.

Lock-in the rabid weasel with your flowers,
and they will breed; give me the light, and I
will make the stone a soft consent of hours:
the deepest images are those that lie.
Change as you may, the meanings can but rhyme.
How shall a bezel bite one out of key?
From animal to chord, from flesh to time,
nothing can differ except by degree.