CIPHER
Ahora quiero que digan lo que quiero decirte
para que tú me oigas como quiero que me oigas.
—Pablo Neruda
a surface of boundaries is irrevocably hoarse
a hostage garden
—Jean Donnelly
for Doug
I
Above the hour as usual
each cusp a probable as is the tug
drop of us, a minim of the scar, the ceremonial
in successive generous permit, or just the sense
restaurants (or other that one is already mad
succor) beyond coil & bide.
as your travels are rust- The shroud is not
colored & stories mine, nor brick
can't be possessed nor crane.
by anyone, not If we track the shirking
really. furies—disguised
If one finds as hummingbird
the habit rooms & banana flower—
wanting, or zopilotes would you then measure
gorging themselves or lapse there
II
how wicked he left me
pirating a music meant to loom & pollinate
measure each word, the sudden gesture of enclosure
what would I say?
if you were that river, or my hand
all over the city dusk & current
the beginning of this love for you was written through what was left of me
you can't possibly imagine
the endurance of doubt
shuffle & pose
the floral arrangements were unbearable
For though love has a spider's eye
To find out some appropriate pain
I am hurrying through my own dreams to get there
III
under teeming duress on the ant farm & on the runway
forgo & slumber I am slang for luck
one is already mad I am wondering for you
one is all ready those dreams were portents "like it or not"
for the slots & the countries as a particular damage or drunkennes
remnants, numbers & rescue & reputable frame of the heart
a song tucks itself blithely spent by dishonesty
into offices & airports & you a bird in suit & a bird in a coffin
continue on as if I never watched so if the martyr is fantastic
your story or faltered if the runway is ready
IV
love cannot end us hiking back to where you were
the nights become slaves last seen
to their nervous beliefs to withered collections of books
& the moon is intolerable & the crushed grass where we have lain
but this voracious theology the verb shall not touch
our gold inscribed, our cipher nor sweeten her
writing one is heavenly our cool root, our vagabond
V
we knew exactly what she loved
your arms her parentheses
you are purely portrait
each curve or vein
the great estate
time has no idea
lost her mind
in the fern without a name
sometimes our names sleep too
dream as you once dreamed
the flowering of lawlessness
corruption of the sweet pages
waiting in the torn meadow
we loved to leave them there
a true world
fictively constructed
& the sane ones grew horns
our houses burned into themselves
& left silence to itself
he was eating soup with some friends
he fell in love with a woman there
a piece of dusk caught in his mouth
VI
the sky too wants fortune wearing the boots of gentlemen
& this voice, the crucible as children we imagined this
the sand in our eyes & inhabited our losses
a darker steeple shadow dreaming of how to adorn
left to the stairwell weather the impossible
para que tú me oigas como quiero que me oigas.
—Pablo Neruda
a surface of boundaries is irrevocably hoarse
a hostage garden
—Jean Donnelly
for Doug
I
Above the hour as usual
each cusp a probable as is the tug
drop of us, a minim of the scar, the ceremonial
in successive generous permit, or just the sense
restaurants (or other that one is already mad
succor) beyond coil & bide.
as your travels are rust- The shroud is not
colored & stories mine, nor brick
can't be possessed nor crane.
by anyone, not If we track the shirking
really. furies—disguised
If one finds as hummingbird
the habit rooms & banana flower—
wanting, or zopilotes would you then measure
gorging themselves or lapse there
II
how wicked he left me
pirating a music meant to loom & pollinate
measure each word, the sudden gesture of enclosure
what would I say?
if you were that river, or my hand
all over the city dusk & current
the beginning of this love for you was written through what was left of me
you can't possibly imagine
the endurance of doubt
shuffle & pose
the floral arrangements were unbearable
For though love has a spider's eye
To find out some appropriate pain
I am hurrying through my own dreams to get there
III
under teeming duress on the ant farm & on the runway
forgo & slumber I am slang for luck
one is already mad I am wondering for you
one is all ready those dreams were portents "like it or not"
for the slots & the countries as a particular damage or drunkennes
remnants, numbers & rescue & reputable frame of the heart
a song tucks itself blithely spent by dishonesty
into offices & airports & you a bird in suit & a bird in a coffin
continue on as if I never watched so if the martyr is fantastic
your story or faltered if the runway is ready
IV
love cannot end us hiking back to where you were
the nights become slaves last seen
to their nervous beliefs to withered collections of books
& the moon is intolerable & the crushed grass where we have lain
but this voracious theology the verb shall not touch
our gold inscribed, our cipher nor sweeten her
writing one is heavenly our cool root, our vagabond
V
we knew exactly what she loved
your arms her parentheses
you are purely portrait
each curve or vein
the great estate
time has no idea
lost her mind
in the fern without a name
sometimes our names sleep too
dream as you once dreamed
the flowering of lawlessness
corruption of the sweet pages
waiting in the torn meadow
we loved to leave them there
a true world
fictively constructed
& the sane ones grew horns
our houses burned into themselves
& left silence to itself
he was eating soup with some friends
he fell in love with a woman there
a piece of dusk caught in his mouth
VI
the sky too wants fortune wearing the boots of gentlemen
& this voice, the crucible as children we imagined this
the sand in our eyes & inhabited our losses
a darker steeple shadow dreaming of how to adorn
left to the stairwell weather the impossible