Nested Things
Every day we make this earth less alive, less legal.
Clare Pollard
What is this diminishment
but sin against god
which is a program
to generate complexity?
The dust-laden wind of December
Smells Saharan.
I lie in my cold bed as words
from the chapel hang from the ceiling,
from dust you come, dust you go…
World, listen.
I diminish society—a union
of homemade fire and salt
carving judgment for my body.
I mold darkness in my tongue,
in my illicit moaning, in decibels flying
high against the wrench
of the room’s stillness.
Sometimes my body is a pool
of wreck—
a contraption forged for
complexity,
many times a parcel of society,
a throne of judgment.
I carve judgment for my body.
A man walks in the street
lacing the dusty wind with fire,
awake from your slumber…
if the cold night could give up silence,
‘but who wants to hear what is evil?’
At the trailing corner of my
night, I kiss the floor, unsure of the next
word, next name, next posture. Unsure
of the marble floor peering
blank in the dark.
World, listen.
When my knees cling to marble,
what name should I put on my tongue—
the devil sweeping through the streets
with chaos, or god watching from the sky?
What foot parades mercy?
Back in Hawaii, afternoons
were planted on solemn walks.
I wrapped my gaze on a slender
aspen shaking off for winter, blooming
for spring.
A tree knows no regret.
If society would listen…