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destinations.
    I am a letter in this slot
    I fly to a name, two eyes.
    Will there be fire, will there be bread?
    Here there is such mud.
    It is a trainstop, the nurses
    Undergoing the faucet water, its veils, veils in a nunnery,
    Touching their wounded,
    The men the blood still pumps forward,
    Legs, arms piled outside
    The tent of unending cries
    A hospital of dolls.
    And the men, what is left of the men
    Pumped ahead by these pistons, this blood
    Into the next mile,

    The next hour
    Dynasty of broken arrows!
     
    How far is it?
    There is mud on my feet,
    Thick, red and slipping. It is Adams side,
    This earth I rise from, and I in agony.
    I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming.
    Steaming and breathing, its teeth
    Ready to roll, like a devils.
    There is a minute at the end of it
    A minute, a dewdrop.
    How far is it?
    It is so small
    The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles
    The body of this woman,
    Charred skirts and deathmask
    Mourned by religious figures, by garlanded children.
    And now detonations
    Thunder and guns.
    The fires between us.
    Is there no still place
    Turning and turning in the middle air,
    Untouched and untouchable.
    The train is dragging itself, it is screaming
    An animal
    Insane for the destination,
    The bloodspot,
    The face at the end of the flare.
    I shall bury the wounded like pupas,
    I shall count and bury the dead.
    Let their souls writhe in a dew,
    Incense in my track.
    The carriages rock, they are cradles.

    And I, stepping from this skin
    Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces
     
    Step to you from the black car of Lethe,
    Pure as a baby.
     

Medusa
     
     
    Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
    Eyes rolled by white sticks,
    Ears cupping the seas incoherences,
    You house your unnerving headGod-ball,
    Lens of mercies,
     
    Your stooges
    Plying their wild cells in my keels shadow,
    Pushing by like hearts,
    Red stigmata at the very center,
    Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of departure,
     
    Dragging their Jesus hair.
    Did I escape, I wonder?
    My mind winds to you,
    Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable,
    Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of miraculous repair.
     
    In any case, you are always there,
    Tremulous breath at the end of my line,
    Curve of water upleaping
    To my water rod, dazzling and grateful,
    Touching and sucking.
     
    I didnt call you.
    I didnt call you at all.
    Nevertheless, nevertheless
    You steamed to me over the sea,
    Fat and red, a placenta
     
    Paralyzing the kicking lovers.
    Cobra light
    Squeezing the breath from the blood bells
    Of the fuchsia. I could draw no breath,
    Dead and moneyless,
     
    Overexposed, like an X ray.
    Who do you think you are?
    A Communion wafer? Blubbery Mary?
    I shall take no bite of your body,
    Bottle in which I live,
     
    Ghastly Vatican.
    I am sick to death of hot salt.
    Green as eunuchs, your wishes
    Hiss at my sins.
    Off, off, eely tentacle!
     
    There is nothing between us.
     

Purdah
     
     
    Jade
    Stone of the side,
    The agonized
     
    Side of green Adam, I
    Smile, cross-legged,
    Enigmatical,
     
    Shifting my clarities.
    So valuable.
    How the sun polishes this shoulder!
     
    And should
    The moon, my
    Indefatigable cousin
     
    Rise, with her cancerous pallors,
    Dragging trees
    Little bushy polyps,
     
    Little nets,
    My visibilities hide.
    I gleam like a mirror.
     
    At this facet the bridegroom arrives,
    Lord of the mirrors.
    It is himself he guides
     
    In among these silk
    Screens, these rustling appurtenances.
    I breathe, and the mouth
     

    Veil stirs its curtain.
    My eye
    Veil is
     
    A concatenation of rainbows.
    I am his.
    Even in his
     
    Absence, I
    Revolve in my
    Sheath of impossibles,
     
    Priceless and quiet
    Among these parakeets, macaws.
    O chatterers
     
    Attendants of the eyelash!
    I shall unloose
    One feather, like the peacock.
     
    Attendants of the lip!
    I shall unloose
    One note
     
    Shattering
    The chandelier
    Of air that all day plies
     
    Its crystals,
    A million