She gets it. (in his mind)
He's carried her this far.
Trembling,
he worries his sticks,
frantic for a spark.
Day is shrinking,
soon it will be dark.
He rubs and rubs and nothing
comes. Bitter cold burns white hot.
Adrift, feeling for the ground
with her toes, she plots her own eddies.
So far, in fact, into his imaginal realm,
futility itself lifts her - head first - releases her.
Real and make-believe fuse and fall,
fuse and fall, tumbling over themselves.
An unbalanced mass, rolling, swooping,
pondering its featherweight meaning. At first,
hoping she'd sprout wings, soar high above,
her body (abridged) – calibrated to exquisite precisions,
a hautbois d'amour strung over time's deepest abyss –
would convey missives from l'au dela he'd bellow into the wind.
When he finally grasps Iwsa'as is hard and knotty, an unruly
wood and most distrustful reed, he still insists on his money's worth.
Look at him! Look at Onan now, blowing and rubbing! The spark,
if it comes, will offer no consolation, nor so much as a jot of warmth.
YOU ARE READING
Express, baggage and all...
PoetryObjects in the mirror are closer than they appear... Just when you think you've put something behind you for good, you look back and find it trails you like your very own comet's tail, lighting a path through the dark. Reading through these pages...
