A-a-a-a
here it is the grid of presence closing
the hot stone dust in your nose and
what must be said
scratch-scratching till the screen weeps blood:
I was in the hospital.
This, they must take out.
And this, perhaps.
Also…
motionless day turning
darkness of your eye turning yellow
doors wires closures
my ignorance which won’t look you in the eye
the desert never looks you in the eye
at the ordinary name of illness its polished
general ward.
But the body is inconsolable
this is the burnt mouth the closed eye
everything passes through
a dry place on your skin
can I touch it?
Putting my hand into the wound of presence
because I don’t doubt
though this truth was born lying
an ulcer in a clear sky
(only you were breathless. You knew
in the honeycomb of your cells)
clear as skin
presence multiplies burning itself under our feet
a dry wind
light cut open explodes black
blades along the mountain:
who will cut you?
Dark slopes of what-must-be-done.
Of the twelve-fold choruses
I can tell you five,
five for the holy ulcers,
six for the night candles:
of the twelve times over
eight for the joys we don’t understand.
Of the twelve-fold mysteries
I tell you nine,
nine for the nine months’ waiting
two for the figures in a burning valley.
Somewhere below is a town branching with lindens
streets and clinics
in the shadow of the mountains
curtains, tubes, the closed figure of a man
whose turn it is to lie down.
In the desert black light bleaches the scorpion
mark of love.
Two figures in a desert.
To love is always to lose.
Two figures.
This is the uncertain line of story the moving finger
this is touch.
π