I
After the double party
for the poorly loved
when the gleam in the hound’s eye
fell like glass rain on the south
lawn of the countergarden, when
the image of false flags sank
in the mirrored plaques,
when the mirrored plaques
had been passed in, they took
your days and gave them back,
before you unsnapped first
the crenellated shoulder wings
then the fumbling then the little
ankle wings and sent them back
to the wing patrol, in the box,
in the metal box, in the genital
mouth of the rose (the open forms
of the state left so
undone that you were stranded
on the nonimperial coast having
a boat unnamed for you)
you were free, you were
having a bout of meaning
II
A leaf hurried by on its
side. Of what is knowledge made?
A season stopped by without your
noticing, saying, lost file, breath boy;
the sun had leaked its power
into things, and all notation had
become inaccurate suddenly, you’d been trying
to talk to them from this
coast, you’d been trying to help
them in their small groups
III
Monsters of will and monsters of
will-lessness confront the garden; a dragon
crow greets the dusk with its
prow. Rhyming is a tool of
friendly desperation. The spirits will return
though they’re not here now.
IV
Oracles, iron, the misuse of fire
under the young earth, and this
business of being infinitely swept up
in possibility so when you put
your hand down on something white
you noticed that detail, punctuated by
luckless forms. But night had been
deployed: see-through parts of the moon:
lace, anima mundi; and weren’t there
two forevers, words and space, between
which more experience might ride, unremembered?
You were supposed to tell them
what they’d missed; they’d read your
logics, your letters. So little space
between your letters, the words couldn’t
easily air themselves. Remember going back
and forth between the rooms? Blue,
green; the wings had been adjusted.
You were meant to take black
netting off a face or two. Take
something. Passion brought you
here; passion will save you.
