Did the time change. Did little
savings of a day
glint on blades
wind tilted towards the illuminated
capital. Starting
again, did change
course. A sentence rougher on the side
where fur used to
grow brown meadow
fluttering across the hide was, flayed, a Book
of Hours listing
prayers for the tolls
that turned the pages, Venetian blinds
drawn over so we
can’t
say anymore where the room is from
inside. Glare
melting its windows. Air liquid
iodine to anyone looking in. The lowest rungs
of cloud turn gold
and that’s
how you know what we’re to
gauge ourselves
against. I slept, was jealous of
my privacy, I wouldn’t see anyone, the houses
cropped to yellow
squares,
black branches wiring some blown-out
intercom, I mean I
checked the settings
on the sun and the day was fine. I keep a sample
in my desk for
beauty, the test tube glows
pale blue through cracks in the wood when you turn
the lamps down. A
little moon you used
to wear on your wrist and better than the moon
could shine on its
own, that numbered face
the girls in uniform would lick a brush’s tip
to get the finest
point for, careful
as hands liming animals books were
before they were
trees. He shoved
a kaleidoscope in my mouth and told me
but the dream cut
off. It’s only half lived
consciously, by perforated loss, therefore
nothing, how am I to
get a point across
this long life? Did you take them for
assembly lines or
for a comic
strip, the girl performing slightly
different operations
by herself in alternate
time frames. Some private stained glass
you arrange by
rotating
your wrist and in its object chamber
bright shards
coalesce whatever cataract.
It’s just the black light
making you look
chemical. Undark
used to paint their teeth and cheeks
and so their skin
gleamed
independent of the overhead or sun. Did
you speak in time?
No. Did you know
what piece to save? I couldn’t see to. Did you
see anything light
up that wasn’t sunlit? You weren’t
supposed to watch the choreography for pleasure, it was
developed as ‘a
science of behavior towards
others,’ strict exemplary manners
that the audience
might live as if they lived
in Italy or France. En pointe, the girls were
tangent to the
ground by one toe only, even
that one plinthed on wood and numb
to ever sharper
stages of a pain interpreted
as stairs you used to elevate yourself. She carried
vials of it in her
pocket home and kept
it in her desk because she thought it
beautiful, the mild
blue specimen resembling
a flame’s pale eye gemmed cool and steeping the dark
air of her room in
washes that betrayed
no injury or effort save for skill
describing grace so
that we knew
from the way the dancer raised her arm
how far her country
was.
