I am ilk, an s removed from silk,
a bitter pill for my stalwart fellows,
Leviathan who’s left Eden for a pillow,
a smile on my forehead like the clove
foot of a fleet beast evading bliss
which had been its tendered firmament,
a sibilant shush to quiet dying turbulence.
My savior flies through the skylight
As I pray splayed on the floor below,
arms outstretched for the warmth
they seek, find little of, since I fell to earth
billennia before yellow, green, and blue,
my color only red, red, red, black red.
Lift me through the glass to incandescence.
How would you have found my face, if you
hadn’t seen its light? Triangular
signification was seared into your sight,
as I sought to seem isosceles, not pyramidal,
since I had limited bricks to bulk me out,
but the hypotenuse obscured my image:
Illuminate the right declination.
Since the only holy now is metaphor,
the concrete beast creeps to suburban
Jerusalem on cat feet, nimble nubs,
claws too abstract to bloody up much,
excruciations wilting, hidden behind
the obscure de rigueur mortis of simple
city streets, their dead cell agriculae.
Trotsky got killed with an ice pick. You
weren’t killed, but the image sticks there,
an occipital jab that blinds like curettage
during a lobotomy. You will no longer
need to counteract rationality with feeling,
given the disconnect. Your science can
grow as if stalks were planted in liquids.
I stuff celery on Thanksgiving with cream
cheese. When you eat it, eat olives with it.
Remember the sensation, prepare it again
for Christmas. Somehow add hot pepper
to it, as if flesh were added to soul
constantly, accrued around it, as if you
fought for justice even if they killed you.
