What the Instant Contains

Presently Lyle gets into bed.
The amaryllis on the sill hum.
The dust starts inventing the afterwards.

He is not getting up again.
The dust starts inventing the afterwards.
The whole thing from the ground up.
The presently.  The Lyle gets into bed.
The amaryllis on sill hum.

The roses on the wall grow virulent.
The dreadful increasing dimness.
Then even the wicked no longer matter.
Even the one who would steal the water of life goes under,

even the unread last 49 pages 
of the mystery novel on the kitchen table,
(the sill under the amaryllis hums),
even the ancient family name,

even the  woman he never found.
If you sit there, near him, in the sofa chair,
if you look at him he's sleeping now, curled,
the oxygen furious in its blank tubes,

you can hear the wind as it touches the panes,
then, as the wind drops, bushtips brushing the panes,
buds on the tips,
then, as the wind stills altogether,

the weight of air on the panes,
the face of the air not moving,
the time of day adhering to the panes,
the density of the light where the glass fits the frame

of the windows Lyle built,
in the walls Lyle built,
all of it adhering--glass to light, light to time--
all of it unable to advance any further,


here now, arrived.  If you sit here,
if you sit in your attention watching him sleep,
if it is still sleep,
looking past the vials and the industrial oxygen tanks,

hearing the tap at the pane,
hearing the tap, click, as the wildgrasses rap
as the wind picks up,

looking into his closed face for the gaze,

you will see, if you an posit the stillness
that beats on its pendulum at the heart of the room,
x beats per minute,
if you can place it at the center,

the beat of the stillness on its tiny firm arc,
like a face on a string, perfect, back and forth,
to permit the center of the center to glow,
you will see the distance start to grow

on the shore of the endlessly lain-down face,
yellow shore which the wide hand holds--
right there on the pinpoint of the face in the room...

When he wakes I will give him some water.
I will try to feed him some soup.
We will try to drive back into the body
what roves around it,

will try to darken the body with a red flush,
make it affirm itself in relation to the light again,
make it know something, make it grow dull again,
instead of this translucence, this mirror becoming glass,

dents in it, sockets, tape on the left cheek
pulling the papery skin folds back
to hold the nostril open
to fit the radiant tube inside.

But now the face is going faster, faster

--floor sills dust going the other way,
the whole marriage pulling apart--his dream for the drawer,
waiting from skin--
Now he opens his eyes and looks across the room at me,

now there are men on the bed with him, many men, naked,

one puts his fist in another's mouth,
one puts his fingers in another's ears,
another's fingers are in there now too,

they put their hands on each other's feet, they roil,
there's a shield in the air but you can't see it,
it's the thing the dust makes when it's cast up,
there are elements from history,

the air hums, edges, undersides, beveled lips,
shadows behind the edges, ears, fingers,
Circe there on her throne in her shining robe
with golden mantle and the place was lovely

and nymphs and naiads waiting on her
carding no fleece, spinning no wool, but only
sorting, arranging from confusion
in separate baskets the bright-colored flowers,

the different herbs,
and where we had shoulders we have no shoulders
and where our arms were in their right places
there are no arms, there are no right places,

her song would move the wood, would stop the
streams, would stay the wandering birds,
her song would move the wood
would stop the stream

would stay the wandering afterwards.  Tap tap.
Presently the cast-iron stove,
with metal fruit upon its wondrous flanks, is cold,
grapes swelling there, and apples, pears.

I put my hand on them.
I press my palm onto the icy fruit.
Tap tap the flowertips.
The heart of waiting.  Tap.

There are two directions--fast--in the instant,
two, tangled up into each other, blurred, bled,
two motions in every stillness,
to make a body, waiting--

the motion into here, the firming up,
chest paper book face leaf branch drawer,
the order of events, days, days,

something like a head at the top, stiff,
the minutes flowing off into limbs, fingertips,
the trunk made of actions-that-can't-be-undone,
shield high,

the first minute of existence ruffling like feathers on hair
at the top of his crown, stilling,
the next minute arriving, stilling,
all of him standing there on his crucial deeds, on the out-

come, growing ever more still.
And then, faster and faster--fed by dream--
fed by each glance in the mirror however swift in passing,
moving suddenly in limbs that are not limbs,
moving with a will not yet an individual will--

and the room containing this flow or being contained
					by it,
and Lyle momentarily on the crest till the wave breaks again,

and Lyle being distributed partly to him partly to her,
torn up and thrust,
(I want to forget it, I want to forget what I saw),
the face riding for a moment longer on the spray,

the look on the face riding after the face has
			dissolved,
for just a moment longer the gaze in the eye looking out,
				tossed out--

dust lifting and drifting--
specks and sparkles of dust in the empty room--
then us walking by a mirror on our way out and looking in,
and us being fooled for a moment longer

before we realize what's in there, look,
does not belong to us at all
but is an argument tossed out
				in that instant
for the sake of discussion

by the queen on the other side
on her throne with shining robes and golden mantle
(and the place lovely)
towards him whom she loves

to convince him, to undo him.
I look in there at it a moment longer--my face--my
expression
flung out into the room where the cloth is not woven
only colors sorted back into that separateness

the earth in its fields has momentarily blurred--
columbine, fire-on-the-mountain, vetch and iris--
						the iris
so early this year as we leave, and waiving patches of sun--

and then the blue vase I'll put them in for a time.



The Region of Unlikeness

You wake up and you don't know who it is there breathing
	 beside you (the world is a different place form what it
seems)
	and then you do.
The window is open, its is raining, then it has just
	ceased.  What is the purpose of poetry, friend?
And you, are you one of those girls?
	The floor which is cold touching your instep now,

it is more alive for those separate instances it crosses
	up through you whole stalk into your mind?
Five, six times it gets in, step, step, across to the
	window.
Then the birdcall tossing quick cuts your way,

a string strung a thousand years ago still taut....
	He turns in his sleep.
You want to get out of here.
	The stalls are going up in the street now for market.
don't wake up.  Keep this in black and white.  It's

Rome.  The man's name...?  The speaker
	thirteen.  Walls bare.  Light like a dirty towel.
It's Claudio.  He will overdose before the age of 
	thirty someone told me time
ago.  In the bar below, the counterterrorist police

(three of them for this neighborhood)  (the Old Ghetto)
	take coffee.  You hear them laugh.
When you lean out you see the butts
	of the machineguns shake
in the door way.
	You wake up from what?  Have you been there?
What of this loop called being beating against the ends

of things?
	The shutters, as you lean out to push them, creak.
Three boys seen from above run fast down the narrows,
	laughing.
A black dog barks.  Was it more than

one night?  Was it all right?  Where are
	the parents?  Dress and get to the door. (Repeat after me).
now the cold edge of the door crosses her body
	into the field where it will grow.  Now the
wrought iron banister--three floors of it--now the clack

clack of her sandals on stone ---
        each a new planting ---different from all the others---
each planted fast, there, into that soil,
        and the thin strip of light from the heavy street-door,
and the other light after her self has slipped through.
        Later she will walk along and name them, on by

one---the back of the girl in the print dress carrying bread,
        the old woman seen by looking up suddenly.
Later she will walk along, a word in
        each moment, to slap them down onto the planting,
to keep them still.
        But now it's the hissing of cars passing,

and Left into Campo dei Fiori--
	And through it should be through flames dear god,
it's through clarity,
	through the empty thing with minutes clicking in it,
right through it no resistance,
	running a bit now, the stalls filling all around,
cats in the doorways,
	the woman with artichokes starting it up

--this price then that price--
	right through it, it not burning, not falling, no
piercing sound--
	just the open, day pushing through it, any story pushing through.
Do you want her to go home now?  do you want her late for school?
	Here is her empty room,

a trill of light on the white bedspread.  This is 
	exactly
how slow it moves.
	The women are all in the stalls now.
The one behind the rack of flowers is crying
	--put that in the field for later--into

captivity--
	If I am responsible, it is for what? the field at the 
end? the woman weeping in the row of colors? the exact
	shades of color? the actions of the night before?
Is there a way to move through which makes it hard
	enough--thorny, re-

membered?  Push.  Push through with this girl
	recalled down to the last bit of cartilage, ash, running along the
river now, then down to the bridge, then quick,
	home.  Twenty years later 	


	it's 9:15, I go for a walk, the butterflies are hatching,
(that minute has come),
	and she is still running down the Santo Spirito, and I push her
to go faster, faster, little one, fool, push her, but I'm
	in the field near Tie Siding, the new hatchlings

everywhere--they're drying in the grasses--they lift their wings up
							to the

	groundwind--so many--
I kick them up gently to make them make room--
	clusters lift with each step--

	and below the women leaning, calling the price out, handling
each fruit, shaking the dirt off.  Oh wake up, wake
	up, something moving through the air now, something in the ground 
								that
waits.