No Way to Say

Abstract

A doctor so beautiful you'dhave her cut yourheart open,just tokeep her close.*Morning sky, all low clouds.The mental life of nightmaxed out the sun.The name of yourhost proveselusive, who lentyou his apartmenthis triumph on all the walls.Starless night about to end.No way to say, now,where the sunrises, where thewater, hills, bridges, will,out of nowhere,combust. The mooddrops, folds back.These thoughtswould beundetectable,were there evera place they werenot arriving.*A fidelity to thosegone keeps intensifyinguntil all is cold prose,an obscure bookabout shadows inside a treeand a river that is a cloud,about a child asleepas night flees. The dayis brighteningoffering wreckagewithout recompense,as a philosopher arguesgreen can never bereached by spillingblue into yellow.At the airport, youwant nothingto do with whoyou now are.*Nonetheless it will be saidon this date, yourbitterness crystalized,shone, whensunlight fell on it,flaked away in the windand left you porous, calcified,taken outside all cyclesof change. You had noself, just propertiesthat provokedspectacularcombustions,carving shapes out ofthe circumstancesof a life wherefeelings soconfused you,and you madehilariously wrongdecisions,leaving thosewho lovedyou stunned,affronted, sayingyou had died to them.*Having slid their wayup the crucifix, thetwo serpentskiss at the crossbeams,then turn to light.The soakedearth glows.Other suns areclose to exploding,but ours is calm,gently stretchingthe shadow ofan excavated coffin.Amid bones, abook, The Book ofTwo Waysthe soul can goland or water, asdid that ofa disinterredwoman, Ankh, herskeleton won back fromoblivion, lessthan complete,of her nameonly the “n”preservedunder some mud,and a line slantingto the left, likethe tale of a bird,in a lime-washed gapafter what mighthave been Ra,the divinedeterminative.*The river just down the street,is flowing awayinto ever bewilderingpatterns through which,were all a painting,paradisemight shine.The moon overthe darkened houseis a path, to a vanishingpoint like a hole ina bright stone.The bus is nearingmy childhood home.I hoped to see my brotherthere, not just rainat the brink of snow,the drops glintingas snowflakescrystalize within them.As if ever having not been buriedlong enough or deep enoughin the earth to yet be goldI live this lifeas a lesser metal,hell having waned a while,but, now that solstice has passed,the flames leap uplike a secret relationshippulling you apart,and no one aroundknows about it.You, there, then, besideempty pet store tanks,aviaries, and faux wilds,the lizards all sold for presentsthe snakes and guinea pigs, sold,and all those birds namedafter Biblical prophets,the wren, Isaiah,the jay, Ezekiel,the cardinal,John the Baptist,all now sold into bondage,their cages, empty.No way to say Mass at midnight again,hymns and incense, altar gold,pixilated withpoinsettias.Your mother kept the tree lit upat night, till February,needles all fallen off,just bare brancheswith tinsel andornamentsin the oak-paneled library.After dinner, into the new year,Christmas music on the hi-fito the edge of Lent,much of theevening, alone,she sat theresinging to herself,loving the lights.