There are spaces within which
criminals know they’ve
done it, but
no one else does
yet:
the space between the
trigger-pull and
hammer-strike;
the space through which
the bullet flies;
the space between the
impact
and its registering in the brain.
Such spaces expand
to mingle with the air.
You may have
passed through one
on your way here.
You launch to land on
ever-smaller stars.
Your rockets go up
in micro-tiny flames.
You steal your life
from your cheek and your chest.
Your god is your soul, fracked,
burning in the sky
Someone with his key has
tagged my window – scratch
scratch his little itch – so
I see him and not
the water the school the wood –
see his soul stretched. Yes,
I see and am with him, I am
in him now and go with him.
I go with him all around.
The blacker the branch, the
redder the eye that
peers knowingly in my room
Once while
sick at school
in the nurse’s bed
I thought of spies
and crossed the room
and never tripped the alarm
Not calling.
It ending.
Never saying thanks.
A rigor short of mortis
Troubled by the flood below
The action occasions silence and
periodic utterance, your analysis topping
that of the experts.
As always there is theory to consider,
one’s own team
and injury,
Saturday’s opponent,
the coach’s strategy…
All of this really is
about this,
though hearts step up to speak it.
For Kevin Cooley
And for Pieter
