Laocoon turns upward, drawn beyond Earth’s curved prison,
    watching broken cloudscapes sink, then dissipate—
turns the salt wind in his mouth metallic,
    the copper taste of prophecy held back; and then
upward snaps his spine in a white arc, breath splintering the ribs
    as the weight of heaven begins to sink
drawn like wire through stone, the body singing under torque,
    a struck bell ringing into cloudscapes—
beyond carved pediment and horse-ribbed hull, the old sea-law
    reasserts itself, paternal covenants broken,
Earth like grit in the teeth; the boys’ thin arms
    wheel air too vast for any god watching—
curved through rib and hip, the scaled rope kisses tendon,
    pulls their living shape into a prison—
prisoned in salt-spray glare, the spine arcs like a column
    cracked and serpent-curved;
watching his sons thin to shadow, he tastes salt and lime
    in the wound and feels the pull of Earth.
Broken daylight gutters in the sockets;
    even marble seems to lean and tilt beyond
cloudscapes blackened at the rims; the upper vault
    sags heavy, every last bright margin drawn.
Sinking begins at the groin where lineage gathers,
    a downward drag no mortal can lever upward
then the face hardens into something gods mistake for praise,
    the rictus tightening as agony turns
dissipate blood, dissipate lineage—marble cools
    around the twist and fixes the father, Laocoon.