Would that there were a route or license, someway to settle the approach. Would that there were a prayer or switch, something to shut it off. The image keeps reoccurring, sliding from flesh to flesh. The vision is always at the edge of seeing and imagination, the signal rerunning all the roads and ways. The power and the precipice, the picture on the wall. Relentless, it keeps on coming. The fire I feed and form, the earth my only oath. The waste and want of this haunt of words, this kiss you still taste on your mouth. Old poems and buried bones, the bow of your back, the reach of your hands.
It is the hour of smoke and lost loves, the hour of long agos and urgent imperatives and the rats hard at it. The clockwork hungers and classic plots, the music resting its head against my chest, light a gentle hand on my back. Still in my struggles I listen at the window while staring at the walls. Combovers of cobwebs and the stacks the tide of pulp and dust. The steady ache nestled close to my core the pearl that transformed me into an oyster. That tantalizing apple left to beckon as I consider the counsel of the serpent. That trembling in the belly as the imminent train arrives.
I want you to say the words because they’re mostly what I work with. I want you to say the words because I like to think about your mouth. Just a pittance of spit and bare blooded incantation. Said then so, the way it goes folding it from light to meat. This unflagged pole stuck somewhere between seeing and belief, the ease of the trick, the sign the reading makes of your mind. This ritual of the wide peripheral while the flesh consents to every want and whim. The wail of the train and the rattle of the tracks as Kendrick fades to Coltrane, the open window and the shuffling songs. This declarative magic waiting between our heres and nows, the words filling in forevers and longing for your lips.