Victory

Something spreading underground won’t speak to us
under skin won’t declare itself
not all life-forms want dialogue with the
machine-gods in their drama    hogging down
the deep bush    clear-cutting refugees
from ancient or transient villages into
our opportunistic fervor    to search
              crazily for a host a lifeboat

Suddenly instead of art we’re eyeing
organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies
cruel blues   embroidered purples   succinct yellows
a beautiful tumor

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I guess you’re not alone    I fear you’re alone
There’s, of course, poetry:
awful bridge rising over naked air:
I first took it as just a continuation of the road:
“a masterpiece of engineering
praised, etc.” then on the radio:
“incline too steep for ease of, etc.”
Drove it nonetheless because I had to
this being how-   So this is how
I find you: alive and more

As if (how many conditionals must we suffer?)
I’m driving to your side
-an intimate collusion-
packed in the trunk my bag of foils for fencing with pain
glasses of varying spectrum for sun or fog or sun-struck
                                    rain or bitterest night my sack of
                                                              hidden
poetries, old glue shredding from their spines,

my time-exposure of the Leonids
                                      over Joshua Tree

As if we’re going to win this O because

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If you have a sister I am not she
nor your mother nor you my daughter
nor are we lovers or any kind of couple
      except in the intensive care
                        of poetry and
death’s master plan    architecture-in-progress
draft elevations of a black-and-white mosaic dome
the master left on your doorstep
with a white card in black calligraphy:
        Make what you will of this
      As if leaving purple roses

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