whizzed past, we liked the look of it, it liquefied
death, it was here to stay, it actually
had nowhere else to go, was in its last stages now, longed to be
revelation, longed to be part of
nature making its
whistling sounds above, its
screaming
below. The classrooms exploded. The bits of desks lay about
in the dust-filled amnesia. Were we supposed to
wake up, or was it never sleep
again—sleep
a mind blown to bits
after each ordnance hits & the craters
open…
We are so late in this story.
Unable to tell our heroes from our tormentors.
Unable to be convinced ever again of
anything.
Convinced. The word like a year in which nothing happened, a day
blown off the record—the spree
an exhausted teacher unveiling yet again
the temporary
lesson.
You’d think it must be about great love.
You’d think it must be about
poverty or endgame or the provisional emergency visa
nobody ever received in time
so no exit from the spree
ever occurred…
So, no, friend,
stranger,
when your turn in line brought you to the desk, up front,
the teacher was a killer,
one of the very best,
and as he bent over his desk over his list looking for your name
you realized he was your old
professor of astronomy,
the one who taught you to see the stars—
what year was that—
the skies were still visible,
and the stars, the stars…You are afraid to look up now,
the guard towers so full of thirsty lights
so eager to make of you
a singular
example.
The paint has chipped off the legs of his table,
you can see that through these layers of desert-dust.
But once it had gleamed,
once it had stood at the front of the class,
behind it the huge night sky of the blackboard
where he had made his chalkmarks scratch
releasing the spidery calculations and then
the galaxies…
Those marks look now like
the tips of rifles,
though you hadn’t seen it then,
& they were all pointing straight at the class,
at you in your row, at us,
at our assembly line of questions.
We still had questions…
You were ready for the blindfold when they pulled it
from the drawer.
The dark felt silky over your burnt face.
You heard the sound of the shovel cutting the earth.
Where is your mother.
What is that springing forth,
that deep inhalation followed by
nothing.
It’s the trees. Listen to me, think of wind in trees.
Yes the drones pass over and this is their wind.
But it’s still a precious thing. A pure thing. Wind.
It will brush you as though there were leaves, as though there were trees.
When is the last time you saw trees.
You feel them begin to cut your hair.
You listen hard for your new wind, your drone.
You imagine the leaves.
Their glittering still there under the dust.
You can smell the old maps lying on the desk.
You hope a rat will find you,
you hope your fingers will still feel its small jaws,
its minuscule hunger.
You remember Saturn—how he’d drawn it, almost giddy,
its wings hatching wildly across the blackboard,
I lived you say
to no one in particular,
the key deep in your pocket they’ll never find,
yr hand closing round it—
& that time I came home late & the door was locked, u think,
I slept on the stoop
all through the night,
I will lie down now,
I will take off my shoes,
they will put me against the wall,
I will leave my mark—
& it’s then that the smell arrives
of rust, iron, acid & fresh cut roses—a thunder
of sweetness.
It is your blood as it explodes from you.
We hear the bullet.
Will it be erased from time itself now
the small stony hill
in which my village lay,
will it bleed out from me now
the cool stone floor, the water in the basin,
my window onto the olive groves,
the pigeons muttering in the lowest limbs—
& where will it go
where I overhear my father
thanking my mother—
late at night in the dark kitchen—
his thank you, thank you—this clicking of the stars
all round them—
where will it go, where will it be buried
my time,
will it rise up in no one ever again
as memory, as dream,
this moonlight’s scent over the fields
& in it the barefoot steps of my father
coming to see if I am
asleep.
And stars falling anytime I look—anytime—like magic—my luck.
And mother’s low song in the other room….
You who do not know any longer what song is,
or dream, or memory, or the sound of
stars—look up—don’t blink—here it is now the slit throat of the sky
where the endless beginning keeps
pouring itself
forth.
