BATTLEFIELD RHAPSODY
History is a distant
predicament. The throwing arm
collapses around
a song and the song
explodes.
A battle is a resuming
melody. A grenade of compressed
vowels. Ahistorical consonants.
The throwing arm sings and
collapses. The song
distributes distance.
MEMORY RHAPSODY
In which you lean back—there
where your skull fits into the groove
of the pillow. Mind
on the sill of sleep.
From which
a thorough
resemblance falls backward
through the window.
Dashed on the street.
Memory turns,
hears the impact, goes back to sleep.
In which waking is a kind of
ulterior motive,
by memory injured.
Memory’s ragged,
imbalanced creeping,
its shallow
unbathed scent.
Memory smells itself
from here. And to there
in falling, follows.