‘Fire-Eater’

by Ted Hughes

Those stars are the fleshed forebears

Of these dark hills, bowed like labourers,

And of my blood.

The death of a gnat is a star’s mouth: its skin,

Like Mary’s or Semele’s, thin

As the skin of fire:

A star fell on her, a sun devoured her.

My appetite is good

Now to manage both Orion and Dog

With a mouthful of earth, my staple.

Worm-sort, root-sort, going where it is profitable.

A star pierces the slug,

The tree is caught up in the constellations.

My skull burrows among antennae and fronds.