stone-taut—awaken
to iron sunlight, streaming through each slat.
slashed into ribbons, they can wrap you,
buried in down,
anointed by silence,
by the empty hum of it

who lies here? which
principle or sentiment,
tension or intention, was moored here
to this place of rest?

a sea of cotton quivers; a dim eye
floods with frozen mockeries
or memories worth their weight
in silver coin.
who will carry you?—
across the surges
of frenzied sight; the swells
of ruins, of the unwatched pieces
of some body, unwitnessed,
tearful, rent—
and into solace

Flesh is made of madness; it decomposes
as microscopic mania, a trembling cacophony
of possibilities, inked out in some inscrutable cartography:
this is the chart that every birth composes.
The orientation’s unknown. Each perfect, shallow stroke belies
contingency, while squarish road-side signs
instruct how to turn or tilt along these lines
to some shady bed, where realization lies.

How does a person travail this life? Are they like a boulder,
landmarked, unflappable, against a desperate dawn wind,
bits of self scraped off in secret, refusing to move even an inch
but for the arrogant rain of time? A boulder would rather die,
so again and again it dies and dies
its bits of deaths: it seeps into its earth, clutches dirt,
bleeds hot magma from a quivering heart, fills up
its skin-dry scars with easy moss. This is a boulder. Do you think
the boulder bits find each other again and make
a great monument, a great memory,
a great tomb for the boulder? Nothing is so abject,
so unbecoming as becoming.

Few lives are lived. Most are mislaid,
as if marooned someplace between the is and land,
latent, as if being were too slight or still, and
its trembling blue dot marked where our bodies are laid.
Yet, I think every life ought to transpire: each foregone
trail, each unworn desire, each wish is a tragedy;
therefore, in what is—there is only majesty.
Look back just once, and even the road is gone.

trying to remember
biking down Massachusetts Avenue:

behind, a pair of old furnaces take their turns breathing.
hunched, reliable, they alternate gasps
or yawns in their regular exchange of habit.
their hum coats a dim metal dust, the worker’s glove,
velveteen grit adorning fingertips; it is
the ringing in your ears which neither starts
nor stops. does anyone notice that they’re there?
tucked in unremarkably, like bricks shaken loose
by decades of boredom—can the passers-by
stop in their tracks and feel release,
the satisfaction of a quiet ending to each day?

further along, here the empty buildings seem to offer
their own suggestions, in big whispering echoes,
stringing their crumpled edicts out onto a wiry wind.
they tower aloof overhead, insistent,
—their back alleys tower, too, in imitation,
decked in agitated signage, in all caps, as if to say:
it is impossible.
         and the wind
which makes no true sound at all,
it carries the city like an obviously unwanted passenger.
someone steps outside of a shop; maybe they make a noise.
just beneath, i hear a trickle: cool, clear.

i bend down, turning my ear towards the sidewalk’s edge.
there the river meets the night.
it weaves the bright wispy steam of the moon
snug along its modest, bankless body,
like a glacial flow carrying the final sediment
of its age to the unknown basin. i remember
that it must have snowed the other day,
and then the wind flutters wild and chilly
like a swarm; but the river is so close
—it has nowhere to go, and by tomorrow,
maybe, it will be gone. i record the sound:
fresh crackling, intensely delicate, the sound
of invisibility, each droplet its own dream, each
a chorus of downpour, still the river carries itself from here
and gulps down into the crack beneath the sidewalk:
and when i listen back, i understand
that all i may hear is the wind.

here beneath the cobblestone sky,
  moths alight like dancing embers:
    swirling, spiraling, they find
their funeral pyre—urgently,
  imparting every pulse with splendorous
    fire, free, the moths aspire,
heart and wing-beat intertwined
  in metabolic revelry.

captivated, you may wish to wait,
  watching while the wavering air
    encircles you, tiptoeing toward
that brilliant view; or consecrate
  their motion, reaching out with wary
    fingertips—as through them slip
those fireflies—slip through the door,
  upstairs, and past, into the night.

you could find a clearing—
there, beneath the silver marshes,
steeped bright copper in the sleepy light
of suppertime, a curious shroud
over eyelids barely shut. it is quiet
in these slow minutes before nightfall.

a little berry bush grows there,
green fractals bursting from green, brilliant
as any sun-ray, collecting all the signs
of afternoon. pluck any fruit from it
and fold it in your palm, trace
in all dimensions with your fingertips
—and know it is called love.