YOU'RE NOT THERE
The further I drift out from myself the more
I am left with a yearning to scrape the valley out of my chest
the more I inhabit this suffocating closeness coating my bones
the more I dwell in this star
my body flung through the sky until it reaches hell's threshold
and the light envelops my memory
made sacred through words marked with spittle
marking tomorrow with my children
marking my children with voices that thrash the silence with thorns—
Time comes between us as a membrane inked with colors
color of my corpse blotting out the Sun
color of the song caught in my throat
color of God where he fell to earth
color of love Color of birds and color of night
color of the faithful vomiting bullets
Manuel's white face the day he survived the raids
color of his rage the day it burned me—
but I'm not there and you're not there
in that memory, in that membrane of colors
when your glance falls outside the window pane
with no way in that being in between
in that devastation and oblique flight
I'm not there and you're not
the place where our specters meet
our faces deformed, destroyed by
&
no vestige of desire left
we meet there & hallucinate agonistic presences—
o angel
in my dream your hand goes under my head
I insist you place your hand under my head
again and again
o angel
the durable mud of my skin is crumbling from atop the aerie
I want to feel the tremor of those heights
TYPO
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