Something was coming—you slipped out before it
knocked, burned beside a window full of glaring
sky, the bedside pantomime that words edge up
to, the mystery of this place you can’t quite
go into opens up its bargain, harrowed
from the empty ricochet of matter, the
junk heap the body is in every last word.
Tending the body of the beloved, you see
something mortal there that love cannot cure,
as if you cannot think the body tended still
has arms to hold you, as if already
this one you love belongs to some other
estate where we only ever go alone,
as if pausing at the edge of a wood
one says let’s turn back now and the other
says I think I’ll linger here awhile,
go on without me, I’ll catch up.
the flower is the secret of the seed
fire is the secret of the air
the killer is the secret of the gun
the document, the signature
the body is the secret of our blood
grief is the secret of death
the immigrant, the boundary
the poet, the pen
Accidental Antenna 