Jim Perkinson 12/24/01
it is night over the grasses and knew all bones pale, all
the mountain bird is quiet throats dark with unborn moons
the wind like an ancient lost lover
meandering you groaned and the horizon quavered
the island is a green feather on the back of god a little
you found ice in your eye
you were born from a single beat of severing heads and governments
the heart that began that world and you were no longer you
the turtle looked up when you drew your first breath but a groundswell
the sky was indigo and quivering silence you knew the long wail
covered in dirt and banana leaves
but the day was foreign pushing up concrete on your back
broken by foreigners fighting bullets with song
dying and never dead,
it was war in the fields the note trembling
over the cities
war beneath the cruel word of kindness and now the name glitters a thousand thousand
sinking deep into the belly strong
with poison in your hesitant breath
and you took it all unsuspecting you speak many and shake in your slender courage
drinking with your heart you labor with history in your loins
draining the cup a volcano in your leg
not feeling the lye until the blood showed a banyan tree wrapping your spine
your words are grapes and wrath
you cried and their name appeared on your lip your trembling touch
you obeyed and it was your debasement tumbles walls
you saw the trap in your tiny dark burrow
and carefully hid your diamond tongue it is i who fall
hands became your coin, your trade i fall inside my people
soft and softening, caressing the trouble i have been falling for a millennium
soothing the broken skin before your pointing finger
mending bone they could have broken i fall outside
until you retched only in your burning
have i discovered my seed
and your mama’s face cut your lung is released
your grandmother looked straight out through your by fire
intestine
your people climbed up your gullet and now i am
with blood on their tongues fire and burning
and you spoke, retching and there is a world to be cleared
and understood sickness by flame and kisses
in being sick by tears like rivers of ancestors
and cursed it and your tongue names it
and my heart wills it
you climbed through the night and the gods dream it
into the deception of noon
and found the lie white with fever and wait for us