For Robert’s Birthday
Lend ear to the corner
conjurer’s chart this room
at angles to form names
bind them in
metaphors called from the sentence, snake
coiled around our world
some of that comes off too
the chair writhing on your
hips
there is another mind caught
on the outside of the body,
its thoughts concentrated,
willful, a labyrinth
going to Jerusalem
a wounded kingdom
us sad and hopeful youths are
the procession of its instruments
half pleasure half pain
the way any mirror is our own
cups, spears, stars
a word half spoken
to sculpt us
half unsaid
to say ourselves
saxifrage glad
into the presence of the semblance
I am, amid my friends’ faces
that bear the parts of speech I cannot bear.
The birthday boy with his birthday bell.
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