Breaking damp, bleak, raw-edged:
this is the day, the only given.
I dreamed
of a woman I admire, a man I
admire less;
marrying them to each other,
using their
distinctions against them. Each
is less together
than apart. This is a way of
talking about
pettiness: someone else’s married
to my own.
All the long bones in my body are
turning
ninety degrees, aligning
themselves with
the horizon. The flat is
dominates landscape.
Sleep comes over me again between
the noun
and the verb, preposition and
object. I am object,
abject, complex and compound,
everything
a sentence can be. Let others
talk of dominion;
my kingdom’s a breast, a belly. A
triangle
of bare skin above my breasts,
between them,
grows cold. I cover it with my
robe and hope
to outwit sorrow. In Italian hell
and winter
are separated by a difference of
one letter.
The cadences of my speech betray
a similar
coupling. I’m tense, I’m anxious,
I’m frightened.
Three states like half sisters,
each daughter
of a different father, the same
mother: my body.
The last breath of summer just
expired under
the leaves, the first bird of
winter says its name
and falls silent. This could go
on forever.
