A
turned back
invites
the viewer in.
Welcome
into
skin
and
suit us to yourself,
caked
and cobbled as we
are,
kicking,
flecked
with blood and peeled
wet
as color. Pellucid,
wiped
clean and yet
not
sanitized. Juice pressed
beneath
our kindled gaze.
We
walk behind you dripping
and
you will not look.
---
It
is in fires and floods
most
things are lost. What
is
underneath? We cannot see,
we
did not seal or copy
and
it wrinkled, flaked,
receded.
God
forbid
we
forget
this
lost effort of a life
of
costly things. Royal,
bright
as pain, striated
vinegar
down a pole.
Bathe
up to the knuckles,
preserved
in layered earth.
---
I
would not be young.
I
would like to know,
sap
cloying to my clothes.
Creak
and sway in wind,
groan
under breath. Over
my
head, eight umber
tablets, angels, angels’ tablets.
I
carved into the smooth side.
I
hope you know his name as well
as
mine. Benighted, discreet.
It
is sometimes the same.
You
said to meet you here,
to
bare my feet.
---
He
has come into himself more beautifully
than
bent head under wing.
Illumined,
half erased, past
the
bleached bones already.
We
wrap you in transparent paper,
ashes. The smoke of something holy lingers.
Composed,
rescinded, stroke
the
loose skin on your wrist.
“the
body dies, the body’s beauty lives.”
He
sighs out like a match.
(Quote:
Wallace Stevens)
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