I would walk a tightrope for you
enter on entropy the balled up
notions names embedded in a wall
my precept written in a scrawl, sideward
in stone, in pavement
the last note that spoke of resurrection
left and a journey
turned
well death, it hinged my foot
last night and the one before
laborious in indignations
I remember little the dream an
overcoat starkly mentioned
in my head over breakfast
clock or the waking of day
it’s timeless this talk of men
pulling carts taking the jug
discarding books like the outward
glance,
and you say your sidewalk’s a moat
that you view from a cell but just in jest
your freedom’s in weights
while I’m set in a hoop to day
civil comforts and scratchings
of my head
there are hymns to draw from
though I’ve forgotten them
in the dim of bargains,
broad begging,
nearing thighs
and against stomach,
lost the list of precursors
wanting then to save father
and son the same:
for this year it’s gangrene
I collect the limbs
on the window sill
and they’ll come and go half-hearted
and genius as always
I talk up love as provision
among the condemned—
someone’s writing up
the initial death notice I hear
paper and pen press despite
cogent daylight or my sense that
shins weren’t meant for touching
forehead
my shape’s too dense
for death you say and try to guide
with your left eye through a cataract fog
forgoing my harbinger name
and how these fingers find two
iron bows, folding up body—
transposed—
I know your decay,
hold your life like impurities