Which is an Eye or a Bowl, a Dream
Or well-placed mirror in a sunburnt room, shivering through shifted
images: that hand, blackened and stout, opened like a dark peony;
the tattooed chin; shovel and torch; hook and owl. You say no one
chooses one fist over another, that bread’s rise completes its cycle
and begins anew, pressed flat and rounded. Take this heart and seal
its chambers. Note the anterior descent. Compression, lesion. Plaque.
Consequence. And your friend, who slept, never to awaken. Lying
in that strange bed, you taste salt, acknowledge change, whisper
to no one: audible house…audible tree, knowing that time’s limit
remains unclear. The air swirls and you accept this new light.
Note: “Audible house…audible tree” is from Jane Hirshfield’s “Not Moving Even One Step,” from The Lives of the Heart.
O at the Edges 
Interesting the lines that leap out and grab me – “who slept, never to awaken” somehow calms, entices – an escape route from waking anxieties (unless it’s true that we just come back again for another spin as human presence …)
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The Jane HIrshfield line came to me as I was writing this piece, and I felt compelled to use it. It’s odd how that happens, but I generally just go with the flow. 🙂
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Readers may find various lines or phrases, but the one I’m taken by is the “Take this heart and seal
its chambers.”
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Thank you, Frank. It’s an odd phrase in an odd little poem, but one with meaning to me. 🙂
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