Fine
I have a story. In this story, there’s a set of doors,
shut, medieval –
at least they look medieval – across the blue
tops of which someone has spray-painted –
but carefully, in gold, like an updated,
somehow sluttier, therefore
sturdier version of gold leaf – two sentences:
Tell me what enters.
Speak of what’s forever getting left behind.
Sentences that, ever since their
overnight-three-weeks-ago appearance,
no one calls sentences, everyone here
calls them prayers. How does a sentence,
just like that, become prayer? What’s prayer anyway? From
a window not far but, from here, not visible, I think now
it’s better, maybe, that we not speak again
ever, someone has just said to no one answering. I can’t
hear an answer. It’s the kind of
town, still, where no one locks the doors,
you can step inside.
Step inside.
Imagine the dreamer’s difficulty –
try to: the sheer weight, of course, of dream;
the not-yet-broken-to-ride horse;
the hanged man’s naked body, athletic
even now, especially now, stopped
in stillness, “Wilderness has been
no mystery” tattooed
across the dead man’s chest. Feel regret –
fine – but do you have to keep speaking of it as if regret
were a game of horseshoes, or a power saw, or the sea?