12-07-2019, 04:07 PM
I.
The sharp sliver of glass
that cut my wrist to stain
the blank sheet on my desk
is shrinking, now, to join
the punched mirror, the wall, the hall,
the house, the lot, the block,
the street, the village, the city,
the country, the ocean, the globe,
the smudge -- the pale blue dot.
Crimson dries brown
if it’s even red at all
in her neon purple light.
Red is revolution
where what moves in space
encompasses all of space
and does not move at all,
while blue is the precious past
to which our gaze is fixed,
from which we are blown away.
Fervor decomposes:
there is no such thing
as an aged revolutionary.
Earth sinks
in this heat,
the sea shrinks
into darkness---
barefoot
down the hall
to my desk,
my payment
for these myriad
brief reflections
brown and red
traces---
We must be moving on
from our past and from our home,
from her neon purple light
that, too human, flickers in a storm
but, with gaudy godhood, scars the eye,
which is why we are not yet moved on.
And merely knowing that this state exists,
to be moved on,
as we know our past to be our future
or our home the bodies we inhabit,
is nausea enough.
We must be moved on:
she will never answer, only glow.
She will never whisper, only blow.
II.
First to go
are the objects
she brought with her:
pictures, pillows, pens.
Then the habits
that you learned to live with
start to fade: fresh terms,
forced proverbs.
Even those details
she cannot claim to own,
her hometown
or her love of crawling things,
turn unbearable.
Traces
of cat’s fur on the sofa
vacuumed up.
A broom,
a mop.
Why did I cut my wrist
when these cuts to my fist
are red enough?
Why did I wrap my palms
to protect them from the glass
but not my feet?
Because I knew she would go dark
like clouds infect an evening sky,
and the blank sheet on my desk
was laid there from the start.
Now I lie
bleeding out
though the cut
was not deep,
though I only
cut the skin,
and all time
and motion’s stopped
in my room
where the clock
is stuck at four,
the window
orange twilight.
The sharp sliver of glass
that cut my wrist to stain
the blank sheet on my desk
is shrinking, now, to join
the punched mirror, the wall, the hall,
the house, the lot, the block,
the street, the village, the city,
the country, the ocean, the globe,
the smudge -- the pale blue dot.
Crimson dries brown
if it’s even red at all
in her neon purple light.
Red is revolution
where what moves in space
encompasses all of space
and does not move at all,
while blue is the precious past
to which our gaze is fixed,
from which we are blown away.
Fervor decomposes:
there is no such thing
as an aged revolutionary.
Earth sinks
in this heat,
the sea shrinks
into darkness---
barefoot
down the hall
to my desk,
my payment
for these myriad
brief reflections
brown and red
traces---
We must be moving on
from our past and from our home,
from her neon purple light
that, too human, flickers in a storm
but, with gaudy godhood, scars the eye,
which is why we are not yet moved on.
And merely knowing that this state exists,
to be moved on,
as we know our past to be our future
or our home the bodies we inhabit,
is nausea enough.
We must be moved on:
she will never answer, only glow.
She will never whisper, only blow.
II.
First to go
are the objects
she brought with her:
pictures, pillows, pens.
Then the habits
that you learned to live with
start to fade: fresh terms,
forced proverbs.
Even those details
she cannot claim to own,
her hometown
or her love of crawling things,
turn unbearable.
Traces
of cat’s fur on the sofa
vacuumed up.
A broom,
a mop.
Why did I cut my wrist
when these cuts to my fist
are red enough?
Why did I wrap my palms
to protect them from the glass
but not my feet?
Because I knew she would go dark
like clouds infect an evening sky,
and the blank sheet on my desk
was laid there from the start.
Now I lie
bleeding out
though the cut
was not deep,
though I only
cut the skin,
and all time
and motion’s stopped
in my room
where the clock
is stuck at four,
the window
orange twilight.