BOOK IV. EINSTEIN ENTRIES

W

whichever sun i burn
you are there
ever the ray
never the shadow

CORVUS MONEDULA

Must we carry
This to the point
Of a disease,

When even as
I shut my eyes
I stalk you in

My sleep. Lost as
We are both from
Each other, I

Always meant to
Trap you in my
Dream’s imagined

Corners: By sleight
Of mind or snare
Of thought, how I

Yearn to have you
Caught— held within
The cage of my

Fingers— where I
can feel your wings
Burn in my fist.

LURE

What does it
Make me if
I cannot
Touch you where
It hurts most
Touching: In

The spaces
Where I must
Enter you
As a cast
Shadow yet
You are the

Only light
I borrow—
Cleft to your
Steady flame
I wear your
Soot in shame.

GERM

Let him not who
Has yet to shed
The fat of his
Soul fill your tomb
With the weight of
His past life, past
Sin. Not before
He has peeled off
Its skin, cut it
Open, pried it
To its core. To
Wring it dry till
It bleeds no more,
Pleads no more, when
Soon he must cast
Fate into the
Hole: To burn the
Meat of his moon
And bury the
Seed of his sun
Into your womb.

DIALOGUE WITH METEOR SHOWER

Funny how we
Talk the language
Of beer bottles
And cigarette
Smoke: A clink here,
A concept there.
A puff equals
A precept. Or

Could it be that
Between the two
Of us, silence
Gives birth to its
Own alphabet?

PLAYBACK

“I am pretty
Sure we haven’t
Met,” she said when

I gave her the
Line about me
Seeming to have

Known her like she
Had been my wife.
It was a cheap

Shot, to be sure,
Yet she took it
From there, and said

“But I’d like to
Meet our daughter.”
And so with that,

We made our way
For the garden,
Past a bed of

Trees and into
A blanket of
Shadows: out there—

where she had been
Waiting to meet
Us, all her life.

SHAMAN DAUGHTER

We dance like stray dogs rabid in daytime.
Spit and shit, our bodies a tangle
of pulsating flesh epileptic.

Pretty soon, we ignite and become fire.
The ensuing explosion always
Leaves something the police can wave at

In court: stains and strands we might have missed at
The crime scene. All in all, the squeaky,
Sticky, spoor of vesicle and womb.

With some luck, they might come up with something
Material. Some vagrant vegetable,
Perhaps, of a violence long past.

AXIOM: IXION

I remember you
In long cursive loops,
The object being
Is to shackle me
To the spinning wheel
Of your memory,
Of a time long lost.
Now forever found.

Here forever bound.
To turn as a screw
Might turn, without end,
Into the axis
Of your absence, or
As a clock, ticking
Fast to the minute
Hand of your past. I

Am with you at last.

SONGSTONE

Like you I too would like to be happy
To conduct this matter of living
As though the sun rises from my bile

To smile if only because my heart smiles
Which I do but the sun sets too and
Takes forever setting in my bones