We are nacreous and filthy, full of dust
and planets, so calm in our understanding
of how we pull at hearts with hooks. Where
are the road signs, the eyeglasses, the supple
objections of distortions? This ear—its
hair bent one way, its motion a channel of
spinning hydraulics—hears your skin
slightly rubbed by a purple blouse you stole from
your mother. (Skin, as an instrument,
is a softer glockenspiel, rattled by scales
and armored in song.)
Here you are so refined and open to argument.
I am caution, the light buzz of a winter fly
as it performs from one plate of meat to another—
a small life, vibrant and resigned, a brightened light
iridescent with magenta and teal. Collect our scarves and coats
as my fear rallies around each fiber: fish seeking
morsels settled from the last, hurried feeding.
