Trans Rilke
Who if I cried, if I cried cried out the door out onto the street out of the confines of this skin who if I wept would hear, what beauty would hear me, what beauty I have known would know me, what beauty would press me suddenly against their chest and would it be breasty, would I feel nipples, would I feel pecs, would I feel scars, would those scars consume me, would the scars of the transforming beauty know me or destroy, would the scars be crying out like mouths, would the scars remember their own beauty, would the beauty scream me back into life, would I endure the scream and would the scream endure itself or would we explode outward into, into, into, I am stuttering here, standing in the street, I want to say naked but standing barefoot, standing with my head thrown back to the always-sky, and in dreaming it is night but only one or two stars make it through of that annihilating excess of stars, everything unseeable irradiating the ordinary city street, the dog-strewn sidewalk, and in dreaming I lie down there and remember some hillside, or more likely some stretch of water, while my ears fill with car-sound and water-sound, and I let that hysterical overabundance of longing, no, of beauty, make me sick with itself, but I’ve asked for this, make me sick, make me sick with you, make me sick of you, otherwise I am just one of the dead, and it has been like this for some time, and I made it like this, I made it barren, I made it numb, I made it known, I made it well, well-made, well-made-wellness without the well, walking the streets looking for the river, I know it’s here somewhere, muttering out loud, singing out loud on the streets, looking and finding just that sliver of edited water between pilings and parks, that slice of sky between buildings, all of this is known to you, but I refuse to turn my head at the sound of a name rhyming with mine, I refuse, yes, among the refuse, the disgust and discard, the infinite pollutants, the plastic, the garbage bags broken open again, the lovely and abundant garbage from whom I could live if I didn’t always turn away, it’s the garbage and dirt and dried urine that could help and comfort, that could ease, that is you, is you, and you tell me now not to cry.
Waves
Each wave destroys the next, even the wavelets. What desire drives them? And are we like this, destroying ourselves? The waves, reflecting and fracturing a desireless sky. Nothing about that sky is blue. It’s just the blackness of space seen slant. Void and vacuum. Blackness unto blackness. Stars and star-factories. It’s strange to think of all that light pouring down on us unnoticed. They say it’s from the past, but we rush to meet it, and each touch is the present. I hold up my hand. It is broad day, but a star-photon makes it through and touches my palm. So little changes. Or: such small changes. Like a neutrino smashing a coil of DNA: an intimate, undetectable destruction. I am restless. Anchored to a boulder like seaweed rocking in the currents. I am petulant. I am repentant. I am flinging myself on the shore. I am momentary. I want something. I am the tide coming in. I am wind-driven. All of this wanting is the wanting of the past, rushing in to destroy the present. The hammer and anvil of it. The sand and water of it. The fire and paper of it.
Between Us
A gift lives between two people and it can die from either end. A gift flowers in the mouth or turns to ash. I could not stop talking about it, even though it wasn’t my gift, and neither could my friend. I made her cry, and I was sorry for it. Later, I was sorry that I had left out every single thing that was most important. Hearing the story, you would have thought I was a sleepwalker, and would you be right? The crime and the speaking of the crime are simultaneous in thought but not in time. And everyone thought to themselves, I did not know how to stop it. We all followed our conventions and from a distance it seemed like a mimed dance. Arms moving precisely for no discernible reason. Why did those two crouch down together just now? A dog trots down the street, and its gait is ordinary. Eyes open, but it is as if they are closed.
I Will Go
The HVAC system is shuddering and weeping, the climate is deteriorating, people are moving from place to place out of need and greed both. It cannot be made whole at the same time as it cannot be parted from itself, this world. It’s almost funny, but we’re better off not laughing. I will go. I will go on a small pilgrimage in the spring air. I will go to see the paintings of snow coming out of a night sky. I will go to see the sharp white flakes and the blurred ones. May the night sky come close to me. May I stand there at the edge of the water and feel the snow accumulating on my garments.
A Future
I remember the time when everyone had pubic hair and the simple beauty and promise of those dark triangles. We went outside, under the trees, in the dappled sun, and stripped down just to admire each other. Come a little closer. We thought this was freedom and we thought we were making a future. Touch me. Hand between my breasts. Hand on the small of the back. Mouth against my ear. Breath on my neck. Your knee against my knee. This was the promise we gave ourselves. Whatever we thought it meant, it wasn’t what it actually meant.
Into the Waters
As if this were a drug you’ve just taken, as if this were a prophecy, as if this were a canvas, the canvas of a sail, a veil, a veiling, a re-veiling, a reveal, What are we opening to revelation if not ourselves. Oursails, ourveils. Our marvels and marveling. Where had it gone, all that astonishment? We look down into the waters and everything is in constant motion, one thing turning into another, the boundaries playful and impossible. We need something wooden to act as the hull. By this I mean something literal, something that seems to persist in its form. Hull of a boat, hull of a seed. See, sea, seaward is the lull.
The Boat
Once, there was a boat. Or was it a bird? No, a boat. A boat-bird, a bird-boat. It doesn’t matter which is water and which is air, only that there is a surface between them. The bird-boat can float on the water, facing into the sky, or on the air, facing into the ocean. The bird-boat, whose name was Ada, could spin the way a kayaker rolls, flip, flip, flip. Air, water, air. But like everyone else, Ada had a desire. It really doesn’t matter if you are a marvel and a joy, there is always something you want that you are not. Ada wanted to be more like a submarine, or an angel, trading depth for surface. Ada wanted heaven, even though it meant she would travel so deep or so high that everything was blackness, complete void or terrible pressure. Ada wanted heaven even though she would not survive it. Ada. Ada, like all of us, had friends. Everything floating was her friend, up or down. And there were fish, flying fish, who like to speak with her as they leapt and fluttered. There were cormorants who dove beneath her and held their breath until she laughed. The waves were her playmates. But this desire was like a storm, coming in from all points on the horizon. Nothing that floated was safe from it. Waves became walls and currents became predators. Ada was thrashed by everything she had loved. Winds battered her, rains flooded her. Soon there was no distinction between water and air. There was no up or down, no depth or height. Ada spun and spun, tumbling end over end. When she awoke, she was no longer a bird and no longer a boat. She was a cloven thing, a half-thing. Something like a person.
