non v’accorgete voi che noi siam vermi

The motor slapped the water like a drum,
and when the engine cut off,
the silence was bursting.

On a dead speedboat on the Chesapeake,
I was reading Ginzburg.

Nearly twenty,
old enough to want
to be seen becoming
someone who read books like this,
careful not to hide the cover.

Menocchio was in my mind,
and angels were in the curd.

Casu marzu is cheese
kept past itself on purpose,
maggots eating what is
meant for us to eat moving.

No one on the boat needed to hear this.

Someone laughed too loud.
The surgeon and his daughter
went over the side and swam for shore:
all that schooling, striking out
across open water.

The bait went on wriggling in the bucket.

God does not seem to want us pure,
or finished, or still,
but leans over the vat of us,
hungry for what softens there,
for what we feed in secret,
for minds crawling.

When we docked,
I lingered at the stern
and read again.