DAY 8

I go nightly a shriveled monk
to the forlorn interstice
of the mirrored halves of mind
wherein is seeded the third, an awful
flower that will bloom in the skull.
That fall, marked by a twitch or shriek
& limned by the red froth that bubbles
up from the chasm that creeps
from our birth. I am alone in the darkness
of my own eyes, fettered by the sticky
fog of sentience, that mist that fills
the impossible bed with elbows & guts.
White & cold, the always wind
that will blow the dreams from our sleep.
A compass that points forever
at the zenith, a still point, pulsar-
sized full stop, that needle that hovers
day in & out above our spines.
These wreck the flesh, the membranes
of the disappeared--the ones who walk
our air without eyes or sex, who gather
at the mirror when there is no light
in the room, who know what mover moves
the nesting wheels that will propel
our individual fates. Praise,
for the dumb arms that will pull the bag
over our heads & seal the rift
with the blue wax without mass
or shape. Praise, for the mouth
that will end words, each curse I hurl
at ether as the clasp of days closes
end to end. A bracelet of each, week
upon week until the good right arm
will cease to bend. Praise, for what will
make of me a lamb, mane & nape
husked & tossed to the chiming winds
that move upon the brain in emptiness.
Follow the faint arrow etched on each
dark wall, into a ring that laps the arc
of our one bitter sun, into a sunless shade.
A thing like a circle with no name
that makes & unmakes. No word
for love or hate--a sign that is a bone
& a blip of rain, a sea that ebbs
under no moon & with no floor below.