A silver thread connected to a butterfly
taking off into flight: I almost want to block it—
be blocked. Like a priest of feeling,
I had felt too deeply, identified too much
with the ball of my foot on the parquet.
I find obstacles rather peaceably
presented to myself, often by myself,
when I’m by myself, which is a way
of saying, if you want to be safe,
walk in a circle. Listen for a moment
while a backstory establishes who I am.
I am, in fact, mostly all backstory,
ushering forth into the breach.
It’s difficult to point away
from what’s all around you.
Dusk among the Sunday people,
leaves fumbling the breeze.
I forfeit any claim to live alone
as one does not, or rather
as one does, but thinks not.
I cannot see myself without
conjuring the vision of no other person:
an empty flat, negative
of where we once lived,
as if even our ghosts were gone.
The seasons outgrow themselves,
break off into a fifth season—
I stand behind glass, staring
at the final leaves, frail divers
curled in upon themselves.
I sit at my desk, the wind outside
dismantling the pasture. Skull, my pillow.
Moonlight bisected by the window,
past my shadow, my past, the future:
a street of houses without doors.
The evening descends and lingers
in those moments when talking feels
more desolate than the night. Walk in a circle.
Forgive the night. Know the purpose
of self-confidence. Something anonymous
in the way I’ve presented myself tonight,
as if I were outside of my life,
an idea best approached by long-distance
correspondence or a shout from a field
very far afield. I take out my death
and lay it bare. Whittle myself to sleep.
A crow fell into a bucket.
I didn’t feel like eating.
I ordered three drinks.
There was bread and I ate of it.
I was almost almost no one.
I heard the waiter’s patter.
Tell the sun I’m done with it.
All the constellations, too.
I’m willing to start over.
Tell the sun I’ll take it back.
Tell the constellations, okay.
Begin with the formal properties of a ghost:
You seem bound in mystery and loneliness.
I mean bound in mystery and openness,
for loneliness is a kind of openness.
No one’s as simple as one would like to be.
This might be the tipping point into happiness,
riding softly into the numinous landscape.
So much for private swallows of water.
We jumped at the first blush between us.