THE FOREST TEMPLE
Negotiating vertigo architecture
in a tangled hotel of undead hosts
I stumble and wonder if I'm
simply sleeping in a side-effect
of what the Village Elder called
being alive
We never knew the word in the wax
museum hamlet of our youth
or the meaning of what happened to
the Elder...a meaning
I could not define for you
or comprehend for myself
as I set out for his pioneering
final wish
Childhood sleep painted no portraits
of a revolutionary field trip
Fate talked me into a vow of silence
I could not defy until the meaning
of your goodbye gift caught up
with the trot of my growth
The meaning
you could not define for me
Greener than the grass stains
on the splinter orphanage of my extremities
was I - the son of History -
in the ways and purposes of human skin
I would break from these unholy
halls of lurking art
disassemble all the royal blocks
sealing their ambition
and appeal to the Goddesses
for a writing off of this as a practice run
all for one sliver of vacation from this destiny
to learn the feeling of your fingertips
on the day I crossed the glorified
cliche of a bridge
for the paradox I thought
would drop me off with your gift
still flesh-warm and abstract
in my unprecedented hands
10 14 11