for soul is this

Sanctuary, I am light within

your innermost organ: whitened



is the heart you assign to me,

and I assume its shape with ease.



Breath comes to one from another,

for soul is this remnant of expulsion



shriveled on body’s outskirts until

elongating it rears up: guest ready



to love like only the shapeless

can. This air is everywhere.



These faces shape themselves

from light swallowed by water.



I feel river in my under-skull,

tissue rinsed by currents eddying



around nerves. Turn your eyes,

apparitions stream from them.



                          *



 Generations of me rush to the shores

where, touched, your loss sinks below



lines of bodies falling, strapped,

feet tied in bunches, where the hurling







sounds reach me here, where safety

has gained remeaning unentirely.



I do not know these sounds

or their origin, only that my life



has spent itself searching

for black clouds thick



 under skin, explosions boiling sky,

poisons mixed like wild colors



of sunset, intoxicating freedom:

I am running, and when I hit



the confines of white-blinded

skull, I make these sounds.



                          *



There are no sounds these bodies make,

there is the great flush cleansing



their eyes and sterilizing their pink

mouths, there are rocks buried that



no one saw: these are the currencies

of river’s gamblings, the game



water plays with the sun: let us trade

blindness for mineral abrasion, 



 



let us guess at the formulas this world

reactively rearranged: numbers, bonds



flowing like lips between rage

and desire. We can unite, I will pour



myself on top of you, river, and you

will suffocate under ignition.



                          *



I would not trade myself for anything.

Time, your inflation was the mistake:



you submitted to the forceful massage,

now you swell at speeds that distort



my explanation. I am your container,

I nourish you, and I will turn away



in times of anguish. Do not desire me—

desire is your premonition of loss.



Speed from me, child: I am the river

as light unarches.