from “Visitors, Cavaliers”
But more true, less illusory
It pulsed within her like a fog light that had been tinted blue
to blend into the deepening strategic action
thus becoming absolutely useless
Her bone was a cadence, was subtraction
Although her tongue was black because she had died in the fire
her tongue was nonexistent, was soot
This happened to her precisely every three years
although she was not a phoenix or other mythical beast
For example, her boyfriend
would not let her hang up the poster of the unicorn
thousand several white cream
: subject often tinged w/blossom : she said
nearest
the bedpost : a credence
This had resulted in a mild flower between them—
a glamour row, in fact, where they both wore a red headdress
& stamped their feet beneath the incontestable barrier of the ceiling
The ceiling was beige, which accentuated this fact
Another time, at some point during the three-year cycle:
vague I am your increase
incorporeal substance of blue light, of red hoarsely I cough to you
across the ceiling : I fly the indecipherable wing
During this extended period of somnolence, she considered
tacking the poster above the bed, bedamned the consequences
I would like to have another, she thinks, in the present tense
Her abdomen full of the blue light of the fear,
which is anomalous, difficult to classify
Here, where this torch receives no unguent but time chafe
my convictions, technically absent, anywhere but this pillar of flesh
Lay yr eyes upon the cross, ‘bring me the cross, so that I may’
& don’t you think they should say, discussion of art, impresario
is the poetry she meant to
& the history of visitation among the pasque flowers or white
globeflowers, climbing milkweed ballhead gilia, red cinquefoil,
claret cup cactus, my conviction technically
scavenger, immeasurable girl in the fire, teenage girl in the fire
She decided to wear more chiffon & consult a chemist who would write
out her formula on a whiteboard with a smelly marker
This blue chicanery must be
Drawn out / Worn away
But the chemist told her to join a choir
visitor who couldn’t : proffer
documentation of travel, thing-petal, & left the leaves
simple : she said
where the brace meets the wall
Posted 09/17/12
From a full-length manuscript interweaving the story of a contemporary speaker with that of Joan of Arc.