as if beside me
the solitary horse
neighs in the
neighbor’s distant
field, twice, the heat
stagnant, distance in-
toxicated by
light, a chain rasping again &
again at the gate
where its padlock is being
unlocked, the wind
stifled to stillness, the lock’s heart
picked clean beyond my
hearing though I feel it opening too
far, too
far—& nothing
is here, it wakes, tastes like clay, like
wind swaying the dried pines,
& new laws, new dogmas are in-
troduced, & dust, dust everywhere
where rags of wind
swirl up djinns, prisoners, idols, & the horse again now
whinnying as if the entryway to a creaking temple of
dry heat, roots coming exposed, cypress
unable to shake off
the dust settling deep
inside their tight-knit
branches—no witnesses, no shimmer
which is not more heat,
no trace of the theorists who got us
here, the idea-
makers, their killing
sprees & required
sacrifice—up-
risings & targets—
whose drones are these now—
& the rising & falling silences
of terminal hunger
like the cicadas
revving up again
after having ceased long enough
for us to have forgotten the story
completely, for us to be
surprised again
by their engine
raising its volume again to remind
it was always here,
alongside, it was always ready to
appear again in us
as if suddenly. Am I
thinking straight
on this page which I can’t hold
anymore, which u
still can? Hold it
for me to see, would u, the page?
Raise yr voice in my voice.
Or raise my voice in yrs.
What remains is
always, only, voice—this, here,
this creature in the bony
enclosure, these cicadas in
the burning
trees. As for the others, I can no longer
hear them calling
my name, they have
gone on ahead,
or is it I who have
gone on ahead,
I check the day,
I try to look thru it,
yes, it is changed,
it is grainy with recollection,
it is recollection,
is it entirely
so, am I still
breathing
here, is breathing still necessary
here, where time
brings you as far as it can
and puts u
down—what thou lovest well
remains—it asks nothing
but forgiveness.
It says repeat after me. And I do.
What have I done.
Who will I become.