Spine

Spine

…I

hide behind mixed

instrumentalities

as behind a square

of crocodile scute…

                                Forrest Gander

                                Epitaph

                                                (scute—or scutum: Latin scutum, plural: scuta

                                                                “shield” is a bony external plate or

                                                                scale overlaid with horn as on

                                                                the shell of a turtle, the skin of

                                                                crocodilians, and the feet of birds)

It’s a trick of the light I know it

is but the dent in the page

is the right eyelid of the Buddha

and if I turn the book some to

the left there’s a slight line as

will serve a nose.  Yet no lips.

The paper is thick enough to

uphold the hosts of honesties

dancing there, then an explosion

at the pin factory and we’re all

going down with the invisible

thousands: milkweed mistaken

for angels, husks come undone

like corset strings, as if breathing

in a cage is finally too much

to take.  Once one stay breaks

the rest follow as steadily

as water.  You choose the edge.

But do the choosing as calmly as oil,

as calmly as sun turning to fool

us it is the one doing the rising

and falling, the coming up

and the going down, a quiet

Gautama before he’s the Buddha,

climbing the wall to go out 

shedding every layer of shale,

every stratified life, backbone

stacked against numinous squares

and weighty devils, tipping

every lever, every scail of scute.