Aught, no. 15 (2006)
Ether
What's in the slow blood
pumps to a slow rhythm.
Backwards in time the stuff
of redness blends, slips
seamlessly into disaster
as if drawing on a spirit to
empty its calling. I am the
leveret bounding in a short
field, going nowhere. Up-
wards I am viable; there is
no other dimension worthy
of me. In Kashmir there is a
footstep I left: it traces the
death-flat marble of whiteness
flooring the Hazrat Bal. On
a bicycle I crushed walnuts,
twisting their etiolate juices
into the road. In Pahalgam I
died a metaphorical death;
climbing down from the
meadow to an iced stream,
it's as if the water pulled my
soul from my fingers. Now,
when I try to reach out and
grasp my existence, it flows
like so much sterile water
into the gulf. Die before you
die.