…our
livers surf, our brains at hyenas, our guts floored by (gravel): this rising
rose, this rosy mile, this sinner’s Malachi: if but by ruins, this overseer graphing,
this river craned by blood: this ocean fleeing, afar these belted tides, as legions
trek our muddy glands: to love as if,
to die with wings, to sense this horizon gutting our inhibitions: this frequent
trespass, this woman with kids, this terrible fortress. I’ve come to panic, this political nuance,
this Michelle in Obama: our deep Rihanna, our bashful Cleopatra, this tale
knitted through Osiris: our casual eloquence, this classy enchantress, this
woman as held to private morality: our zealous religious, this pint of bourbon,
this curse addicted to its predecessors: our mothers comatose, our fathers
absent, this son too explosive for normal converse: this behavioral sin, this
inner pill, our lakes meeting our ponds: this lethal cigar, this infinite
cigarette, if but this kettle steaming prose—as men convoluted, or women at
their last guess, to come to grips this mystic by sparks: this passionate writ,
this wrestling trespass, or this fever whet for this soul’s guts: our blanket
realities, our quicksand dilemmas, where Love was sick enough to proffer a
life-vest. {I’m dying our glove, this
engulfing feeling, this mental vox—as voices cringing, or mothers to abuses, to
arise this panic at one blast: our winning acreage, this sand-dirt cleaving,
our years to counting mules: this spiritual weal, this internal vizard (mask),
or our vital retractions: as immortal losers, or mortal winners, to come to
scripture pleading father’s existence: this hung beacon, this hung phoenix,
this rising air-sin—where father designates, as groups coordinate, while
essence explodes into five year bids: this passionate mantel, this tendency to
unsay, while cursed this eternal distance: our privileged seeds, our deep
unrest, or this propensity to exclaim this deep adoration: this mother with
child, this surviving prayer, this potbellied daughter: our unnoted arts, our
incriminating autobiographies, or more, this music sensing earlobes: as
unknitted dearly, or reckless mystics, to vow with time this need for passions:
our cut caviar, our relished gin-juice, or this radical forgiveness—as sudden
in time, this satori mountain, this
hawking for truant epiphany}. I splayed
our tyrant, I paid our sins, I died while eyes rolled into oblivion: those
Italian sonnets, those Italian women, as but a fraction of your art: this man
running, as returning to islands, to peek with contention this fair
catastrophe: our bleeding Beyoncè, our rippling travail, or this troth bleeding
its recues: as women with wands, or grannies with magic, to cut and cuss this
man for dying: our deep surgeons, this battle with reality, to ask and witness
this shift in temperaments: indeed, with issues, our tissues raving at Keyes,
while pianos dance to Naïve’s resurrection: this slice to bone, this revised
episode, this resistance pleading its subsistence; and, thereto, this dragon
with wars, this boar with demons, this psych with feelings: as never our charm,
but ever for tugged, to bless with ease this Jerusalem mystic. (I cursed a flower, to witness it wither,
while ashamed because of so many witnesses: this plaid scarf, this inner
cleanser, this fen harboring mayflies: as women to guts, or souls to women,
where it felt good to bond with serenity: this hell in time, this space in air-goats,
this tragedy becoming our deepest ingestion: to cut with life, to love with deaths,
to arise this billionaire ponderosa—those galloping energies, this thrust through
arcs, this plaintiff attorney: as fused and driven, this ambition—that black
goddess—where parts are choking, while rhythm provokes, where a man rests but a
second by fortnights: this inner project, this primate feeling, this code by
genetics—as musing forever, this rising volta, this remarkable Trethewey: if
but to exist, this terrible confliction, this Smithsonian alligator: where eyes
are opal, and tears are rubescent, and ferocious animosity is defanged: this
bleeding whale, this bloody sea, this innumerable number of sharks: where Love sewed,
this flower upon algae, this floating miracle).
