"You said if I’d strip back the
eponymous layers I’d become emperor
over a fluid kingdom —
You promised me that buoyancy. Now
my hands are cranes in the
first light, fine-boned for a man’s,
Astonished. Iridescent. Let need be our covenant in common salt,
after the mercy’s gone."
from All Night, All Night, All Morning
by G.C. Waldrep, Goldbeater’s Skin, 2003
You pick up the spear in the tall grass
and hope for dark clouds to burn off
with the marine layer. But it’s possible
this bloody cough is just beginning;
is an omen of a hologram coyote
who will never fear or feel your spear.
After spending all spring thawing amid
the detritus in the woods, you wake up
with no clothes but still the wanting,
wondering if the search party got lost
in the crevices of the tectonic plates
while trying to reunite with the dinosaurs.
When the jasmine smell fades what
will revive our memory? It may come down
to a fist fight, in a barn, and somebody
willing to take one on the chin just
to recall who we are and who will be
bedside in a decade, damp rag in hand.
With blacklight in hand you search for
family and beauty, chrysanthemums,
a glass to fog up again to reveal
directions on what fort to build next.
Perhaps what we lost we never had.
Perhaps it lies in the infinity of dirt.
