the love that I would bring would not be
something I remember having read.
the best you might do is take it
longingly enough to recreate
an expression of grief and not want to write
the corrections, lofty as a change of rein
in denial, or dissemblance—
that would break me up forever.
it’s on the map—a matter
of all things affecting my heart.
for you are my first born,
premature, unprotected,
struggling to set yourself free
of all the scenery that has culminated
into itself, like memory’s art
has eluded me till the present,
hidden in irritation’s neglect.
as the mind sows the seeds of distance
an optimism brims with purpose
to bear a denial toward someone
playing the last hand of a card game.
so these sorrows pronounce themselves
because the blood continues to pump
peering through our own skin
and the shield of our voices.
I remember the name of one color
that is, what you bring to it,
the way interruptions collide,
the serenity of one over the other,
because of the brand of criminal
torsions scratching at qualities,
like a distant jackal beneath uncertain moons.
this heritage where my miters don’t meet—
it occurs somewhere off the page,
and even though we don’t talk of it
under a steady barrage of dead signs,
we feel ourselves turning against
our words when our sleeves touch
in a state of careless grace.
from “ the arterials” |
