The Cord in The Wall, Left Behind
In the beginning was the definition, black in its blossom
rules that governed tins and kettles as rain harassed time
peels in the sink lapping up the evening detritus, a tongue juiced up by dragon fruit
glucose came and gone, walled chambers painted poorly in the night
a pencil gnawed at with a toothbrush in a front pocket, the stains in the heart
a few words lingered dusty on a bannister unwept
as death came for the cleanup, unbuttoned skin hooked high on a wall
selves shelved beneath the cord in the corner, left behind
what was it they had abandoned, unlaced and they ran toward the creek
clothes dropped behind determinedly, a testament left long ago by the door
in scribble, boxes and baggage beneath an old apple tree balled up by a beetle
rhymes barked beneath friscalating dusklight1 and love’s stem snapped
a wife’s eyes lanterned stain glass in the dark, stingless sung songs
a bat poached upon a baby’s neck in the twilight
the world has not yet betrayed you, only the narcissi of language
shear away, shear away
now, a city falls through the window and the clock comes unwound
rib-by-rib flesh falls from flintcaw in an old cat’s claws
you learn to unplug the words from the socket in the wall
as your parachute collapses certainty, a jellyfish fanning on the beach over the dune
as you fall fast toward a field in the world eyes close, bracing
for the fracturing to circuit through your entiety, Ai WeiWei vase-cracking bones
but your body did not disjunction and your mind voids
what have we learned after all, when
the pages in books go missing in the Thames
a child’s jumper wears dragon seeds to plant in her backyard,
the dead’s nails clipped
along the bellow’d bone of an old man’s travels, desert
and time, elapsed moments run for tide wave and shore and back again
neither darkness nor border shall love the shells so well, the remains
in the bin, syllables sunk into a fog of osprey fleeing
rooms scatter, and there you remain below an umbrella,
behind a book beneath an apple tree, an orchard hung low with cocoon
the dead light the halls and liquor’s longing raps on the dancefloor
let language lag in the back face up the stairs and into the tub
the toy trains in the garage spanner blue
stories fall off the ream of a calendar, the bridge spanning wet stones
yet you too shall remain
reconcile beauty with sorrow when we dance with the dead
as we dine our way through banquet and road, words replenished
and sink into a snowbank of stars
black as an otter2 in the rain.
1Anderson & Wilson, The Royal Tenenbaums
2yes, that otter, Crow’s friend
for: the novelist Marc Nash, with faith
