You, be absolute for death, the psalmist says.
Tie the many ends of your earthly term to bows—
and when the roses that turn in your cheeks
are trampled, and that matter that makes your eyes
is gone, away with the filing ants—
some expanding neural presence shall remain.
And the jewellish hope that once was secreted
in clutches beneath the clasp of your ribs
will blow out, shaped as a woven ring of shims.
Wrinkles on hands’ll cast off as rusks,
and the finger-whorls will solve,
those fingers gone spidery, gone
to fret between lichened roots.
Be absolute for death;
and don’t come linger beyond your term
and bother us breaking our dishes,
mumbling some broken words to those over-intent.
I sicken, I wane, my prospects dim,
my attention sours unto the single shining point.
I hear my fingers fretting at sheets,
and I ready to strike out—
Be absolute for that bloating face,
out from the wreath of wildflowers—
when the writ on skin’s grain
must be bleached off and hid. Be absolute
for char, those fragments, ash-heaps,
blood so dry in brass cups,
censers, chanting, and black amphoras.
-2004
