Majestic Interlude
The rainy season is a league away traveling
at the speed of an era. The cloud formation
does not dissolve as I remove my eyes
from my palms. I can no longer walk the distance.
Insects congeal beneath my skin in order
to rest. I think of a number between one and ten
and a ditch to place my body in, shallow
enough to fill—a single spade of gravel
to cover my mouth, and one for each eye.
Like emulsion, I want to remember
what I have touched, the universe
that crushes; black smoke across
the lips as night crows speak
of floodwaters, the trees falling quietly
at night and the night quietly falling at sea.
A cold morning keeps me frozen in position.
The heat from the vent near my ribs
is invisible and comforts me.
A filtration device is attached to my lungs.
I have reached the number designated
as the halfway marker. Soon I will possess
no more ideas. I am further along
than I imagined I would be. When my body
is covered, a mound will be formed.
Someone will find me fixed in place.
Rain is falling over the sea and the sea
begins to arrive. The banks of the ditch
slide over my limbs. I am having difficulty
being. Someone will find me. The night crows
are silent. They are perched on my knees.
Community of Inquiry
The lying machine looks out over the map.
It looks east. It looks west. Both reoccur
in gloom. Evening lets down its history,
particular and carefree, without a station
to look or love from. This means no story,
no once upon a time near a holy house
in the country did children sing in a field
slowly becoming money. The children
are lying down to sleep, intoxicated
with environment, with a blueness,
a version of its own hue happening above
their heads, looking like a certain place
imagined and shown to our imagination
as different each time, each time flowers
something the opposite of work. Each
thinks essentially No more tears, then releases
more tears from no specific external event
but from the privacy that exists
within them. They are fixed on every
minute of the day. The day knows
its inhabitants can’t leave, or rather can
but won’t. An inner disturbance spreads.
A Home for Head Injuries
Take me to a warm room and keep
me lying flat. Place a small pillow
beneath my injured head. My eyes
may eventually go blank, always when
most excited. They may begin losing
perspective: the sun is in my throat.
Please loosen the clothing around my neck.
I am beginning to see a dome of light.
It is a shrinking habitat. I might say:
my tongue weighs tons and is made of sulfur.
I might say: my tongue is mostly phosphorus,
my lashes carry salt. Where was I going?
I was heading in a direction. You know
how it must feel to make an admission.
It is easy to forgive. It is asked for. It is given.
Bring me back indoors, undress me, place me
in a bed and sponge my body freely
with seawater until my temperature drops.
I can get upset by the easiest of things:
blood near my eyes. The bleeding point
most likely in the lungs, stomach, or skull.
Until I become fully conscious prop me
on my side to keep airways open.
I am frightened. It is difficult to grieve.
I am thinking it is cold, it is only morning.
I am uneasy on land and water.
My head hurts and I am trying to explain
that each person has a partner on the opposite coast.
When the two partners find each other
they sit down together and wait by the sea.
Everything is calm, peaceful, and cold.
People are arriving to build a home
near the sea. The sea will be late to arrive.
For Example
Arrangements were made to secure myself
away from you, in numerous places far
and near, with a near perfect clock keeping
time as precipitation multiplied across
ten million lakes waiting or snow fell
on Union Street in Brooklyn. During this
entire interlude, a subject was in mind,
each morning, concluding my inventory,
I devoted several hours to its purpose
until a sentence repeated contained no signal.
Then evenings, several shooting stars
were accidentally seen, then apparently
gone like actors finishing a thought with a stance
or gesture to heighten the drama’s subtext.
The exit, though, didn’t correspond so much
as the entries you had with others, often
with parts quite obscured. It was, then, as if
a single remark might sometimes refer
to a false geography, sometimes a bridge
leading way from an island, and sometimes
the clockworks abandoned on that island.