Perfect Silent Shapes

yellow green red again
and I sit underneath this canvas
count the leaves on its branches
where every which way is shade
and wet grasses sew shut the earth
under the legs of this certain shape

twenty million pages end to end
from twice ten years spent in halls
book reports, ruled paper. rules broke
renegade collegiate nonsense and yet
twenty thousand folded corners still to go
which brings us up to now where I must
write a letter of some significance
dream up scenes that cannot die

come close to me you murderers
let this beast be its own unmaking
worth handsome words but not much more
let foreign bodies wait in hiding
my perfect partner breathe but longer
and bring us from this place, this cave
burn bridges not given to rebuild
follow me where I then must turn
inside the town of corners edged
under the covers again, unsleeping
twenty hundred dreams to go I hope

this tree, this fruit, these birds and their
worms tell me: better to start pulling
than the alternative, drawn down to a
bed of green growth wrapping veins around
the legs of a sunken bench in the shadows
where winds blow the mornings no more
and genius is seen in pages alone


2011