gimcrackery to the training-naked ear.

The walls hung with fruit and wildlife,

flora and fond isometric reminiscence,

bird and anemone, poppy and peacock.

Near Running Water, Streams, and Creeks

The garden of living creatures.

The garden of honey and milk.

Of animal fat and frumentacea.

Of herbs endowed with spike and knife.

Of garlic and mustard and pungent kin.

Ass’s liver while fasting.

Lungs of a fox for asthma.

Lungs of a swine for chafing and blisters.

Sea urchin for ulcers.

Hedgehog for convulsions.

Sea horse with goose grease for baldness.

Horse cheese. Horse’s rennet.

Ewe’s butter rubbed on ulcerated gums.

Whey for depression and elephantiasis.

Wormwood to feed Sardinian bees.

To assuage a headache: lanolin.

To accelerate scabs: burnt wool.

Beaver stones for wobbles, follicles and grease.

The belly of a weasel for venomous beasts.

So Blooms the Garden of Creatures of Land and Creatures of Sea

(products of dietetic and medicinal use)

Hare [Book 2.21]

Its brain for fear and ­t­rembling. Its curds to counter vertigo.

1

The land hare eats the hare’s-foot fern for lunch.

A hare both herbaceous and herbivorous.

The rabbit’s foot is a plant in prayer.

Low-lying, nocturnal.

A decumbent hare.

2

Apicius ranked entrées of hare second only to peacock.

An earth hare in earthenware.

A jugged hare.

A stewed in blood hare.

A hare pfeffered and braised.

A cat rousted from a roof and roasted as a hare.

3

The art of the hare is the art of not-showy blooms.

A drove of shrubby hares in well-drained soil.

A scroll of simple recipes.

First catch your hare.

Then RSVP the bees.

Sea Hare [Book 2.20]

As mad as a March hare under water.

Skittish floral reef and inky blooms.

Poof! A ruse of smoke and lose the wiry hair.

Sea hare crushed with sea nettles.

Sea hare cut with cuttlefish.

Sea hare a scuttling depilatory.

Orchis Hippopotamus [Book 2.25]

O stones of the river horse.

Dried and pounded and taken in wine.

Against viper bite and venom.

Against ill-intentioned intentions.

O the wide-mouthed floral displays.

The freshwater yawn spectacles.

Sheathfish [sic] [Book 2.29]

A close cousin of Aristotle’s catfish,

stoic sheathfish makes the voice sing.

A fish who sings adversity and enigma.

A fish who sings cooling pond and catastrophe.

“Freshwater or sarcophagus?” sings sheathfish.

“Eyeshine or particle emission?” sheathfish sings.

“Chuck the zone of alienation!

Who’s the bottom-feeding top predator now?”

Sling mud at the mud cat, chuckle at the chucklehead,

charmed sheathfish makes the charged waters sing.

Lungs of the Sea [Book 2.39]

Bioluminescent?

Gelatinous?

Sea plant or mollusc?

Sea grass or jellyfish?

Pulmo marinus

or pneumon thalassios?

Lungs lost at sea.

Lungs lost in misidentification.

Pound to small pieces and apply to chilblains.

Pound to small pieces and apply to gout.

(Strike that. Reverse it.)

Electric Ray [Book 2.17]

The lights are out and sores of long endurance lessen.

Lungs of a Fox [Book 2.41]

An earth breathing with lungs.