Wednesday, December 10, 2014

HEART THREAD Parts Ninety and Ninety-One

90.

There is a certain subtext to humanity
they would never occupy this hill
this boulevard to heaven though I have seen
the shapes of them more luminous than light
sometimes by the Dogana or any sea-touched hand
land they walk even when they’re standing still
the form before form is a gasp in the mind
to see such absolute a shape dissolving matter
once you have seen such things you can’t lose
ghost girls of the Janiculum laugh in the cypress
a tree is left from their investigations
a doorway full of light that natural house. 
91.

Venus as the bride of Christ he taught
and every book their wedding gift
forlorn as a block of marble never carved
insatiable as apple trees he offered her
all the comparisons a likeness is a kiss
sudden stranger on a midnight bus
nowhere in Nebraska the one I never
if they don’t live here they don’t live anywhere
to know truth a little is to know the heart
who knows the picture that was never on my wall
I was afraid of images nothing else can wound.