small temper (a): subject, space, time

small temper (a): subject, space, time

after Moon Madness

                ...Turn now darling give me that look,

that perfect shot, give me that place where I am erased...

                                                            Jorie Graham

                                                            Orpheus and Euridice

the irony of trying to explain it:

    in? away? with? word then

    words is: one is too much 

    and then beyond three, well

    that is not enough.  there has

    to be an agreement to make it

    make sense (think physical

    here, skin) a gathering of all

    the ingredients & the trust

    of experience or the rush of

    spontaneity headlong into it just

    for this moment that folds 

    to this moment to be without

    words how the first flower

    of the season will be picked 

    and placed in the middle of

    the tension and it will be 

    shared and stared at and given

    altar status at table and maybe

that is the first stitch in a series

    of stitches intended to draw 

    closed the wound flushed of

    its debris and its infections 

    of days its relationship to the

    wielder and the betrayed

    the instrument long thrown off

    down the drain and the flush 

    of the beginning of decay making

    vain efforts to ascertain anguish

    from passing away to days of 

    barricade--maybe take away

    the gauze but carefully maybe

    make ready for the pain it's

    going to make in raising even

momentarily, the dead.  I'll tell you 

    it's as necessary

    as this vernal moon whose illumed

    full face has made it all the way

    from the beginning without needing

    to be explained and doesn't she

    pull back the water and draw it along

    the face of the world like the veils

    of Veronica and isn't it a bit of God

    left in the linen and isn't that too

    unexplainable isn't that the first

    moment of seeing the miracle: the

way, drawing off that gauze, the wound

    is an open throat and the veins

    exposed and the surgeon holding

    the needle and sinew against the red

    flesh and before the puncture says

    a little prayer, lips and tongue and teeth

    (but behind the blue mask so this

    is only assumed) drawing breath 

letting breath, the first sign that a word

    is going to accept its fate and take on

    lungs and esophagus and tongue

    and let itself be lifted out to fall 

    to his still dumb studio wet and dry 

    and in all manner of sunlight and ice