and then self-enclosing, like an oyster shell
pink ribbons and flesh-colored brilliance
reflecting on the inner wall,
sudden darkness once the shell
has closed. The origin of the world
may never be found, locked in a mass
of tangled ropes, swaying with the tides,
a prisoner of our dreams, a captive
of our senses, how can I nurture this life?
Where you feel the pulse racing
through a tiny muscle in your neck,
the wheel keeps on turning, it turns
until it stops. Childhood spliced
into fragments, the records tossed
into a vain shoebox, opened irregularly
and easily forgotten; outside a parade
sweeps past the suburban block, girls and boys
hold hands, french-kissing in the crowd,
parents sulk in the heat, holding flags.
Above all, the clouds pull apart like taffy
and the center reveals a satin hue,
it's nighttime and my devotion to these spectacles
is constant and mad, as if I'm viewing
my own poor imprint on the world.
I carry home a banquet and pry open
the door, flies emerge from a carcass
I never knew I had. Unreason dresses me
in the morning and I'm weighted down by
superstitious charms, I don't even have to travel
to hear sermons for what I'm after;
delusion wears a costume of elegant ties
and writes verse in an empty cell.
