Canon of Disassembling an Iceberg
How about this: first
I’ll jolt the gutter,
ache for its town
without mourning—
nothing is unfixable
in light of the inevitable.
Then I’ll taste the blood
you left on the letter opener.
You’re gone;
you’ve always been gone,
disregarding speed
limits on the tundra,
tearing perforated ice—
you’re an assassin
going after sedge, slow
process of lichen
deforestation
truncating the philosophers’
question, yet pruning
their terraces of syllogisms
and proofs.
It’s a brain-wringing experience.
If I could hear
the bones of the hunted,
feel underpinnings of hunger,
see plasma and red cells
pull apart,
then touching the place
you used to be
could inspire me in the night.
I wait for New Year’s,
for tundra to become ocean.
We’ll say, let’s screw
the champagne,
pop vodka instead.
December 31st,
you’re still gone,
overlooking the sedge.
Your email wants to know
my resolution.
I say it’s to towel dry
an entire submarine.
Pain turns
everything bright,
but anger brings
dark where I can see.
I prefer ire to grief,
indignation to sorrow—
territories I know
well into the reaches
of my own stories.
You won’t
find me there.
What’s light in your eyes
becomes darkness in mine.
Unseen, untracked,
I disappear. 