I must define this face
this race, the naive momentum
my thoughts the piano’s encroachment
the solitaire’s monastery is my wheel
a soft raised convicting finger my stubborn engine
the long march into centuries and legends
a lost Carolingian desperation;
the Great You that almost Latinized me
in my march, my boundary
I travel with leather and spices
and the abridged and insufficient scrolls
that keep names and wars as causes
this drag of history
a story of everything for no one in particular
lines that remember sleepy pope eyes
puddles of blood and new routes to fame;
I must define this outcome
declare it a migrating art
a necessary war
an early appearance or a rapid descent
the ambiguous year of transformations
a division in which hands fall
deep to the middle of the earth
at the center of time
an indiscriminate movement
in nobody’s control.
.
