Lungs, kidneys, testes,
the eyes, fine-spun apparatus
of the middle & inner ear;
no chronology in the
body’s bilateral symmetry.
Remember the tombstones
made of flame, the flesh-
pistons of the starlings
lifting from the field at dawn.
You cannot pass. You
cannot touch, with the hand,
certain edges of the body.
A ladder is a vertical
rigor, love’s imperfect
tense. Strengthen the debt,
the myriad attractions.
Preposition vs. proposition,
when God is watching
vs. when God is “when.”
As a door opens or closes
seemingly by itself
means a storm is coming.
What is found vs. what
is believed to have been lost.
When we walk on water
it means the water’s ice.
Repent of the whole body
on the body’s grounds:
a mansion, richly appointed.
Here is a golden lamb, &
here is the fingernail
of a saint. The soul walks
into the body the way
three men walk into a bar,
only it is no joke. You
cannot pass. The starlings’
flailing ore against the wind’s
dumb recompense, a red
depth, like light or volume.
When we were children
we played in the cemetery.
We leapt over the stones.
Love lathes love’s blue
accident, its Caesar-throne.
Be as gold, be vitrine. As one
impressed for mourning.
from Poetry Northwest 09.2 Winter & Spring 2015More by G. C. Waldrep from the library
Copyright © G. C. Waldrep
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.