Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

A jeweller’s wheel cuts the constellations
above the circular garden
on the single canvas

the white doe folds her feet into tallowed alabaster;
the dancers pour their shawls
like glazes over the balustrade

beside the seven immaculate triangles of water,
the dead wear their trembler-springs
of hammered gold

the sun notches its arrow;
the pomegranate bleeds;
the virgin wears an ermine on her sleeve

the timbre of the light
a haze held by thorns,
a snakeskin still perfect over the eye.

How it burns back – the myrrh at noon –
the milk from the crushed nectaries
of her breasts –

and beyond the palings,
where the paired birds hang
on their frieze

the falconers
walk into the crucifixion.