76.

(Images as an afterthought)

76.

Two different drills, East and West, the clamor of construction is a command

sawed into action, the madness of two saying the same thing once

the divergence of perhaps this is fear is its own healing reflection, cold-footed, partway in

the alphabet, the alphabet all the way in what drill is this city its monumental

undoing I recite your name to the vines’ slow spread up the bannister

I call you by your name you bless this definite rain from uncertainty

real death rehearsal

within and apart

leap from the hilltop

circle to circle

faster than specifics

language is commerce

the stuff between

who am I

to let it speak

the reclamatory

machines, nouns

to be them and more

more than everything

to say this precise

abstention

both ways 

to body’s full

spontaneous creation

every city a secret

speaking itself

I grow fat from the sound

of breath

coiled into the air

anyone even you

can be your prophet

who then is this

don’t know a thing

I tell you what to say

but the words are all yours

silence is for everyone

that’s what listening is

to be everybody, anybody

in a land crowded with names

the construction intends but who does it command serve the sentence 

until it shows you the door lady holding a flower silly daffodils she intends 

merely this commands anybody’s silence queen of divergence there first seen last.