Undercovers

Let me show you where it is
and how we have come to be here.

Fear, silly fear....
I, too, was unprepared
for such an invitation, yet
I have died to tell.

          The tragedy?:

I have no capacity
for mapmaking; chance wins over
my hands, and they fail
to repeat the land
the way I lived it.

Because I did, because
I do.

Thoughts of failure, guilt
elude me, even now,
for the two of us have
such differing senses.

I hope
you let me down last night
and, as a result,
are well-rested:
          the myths no longer
          match,
          the film out of sync
          with sound.

Only figures excited anymore
are moved through
desperation.

I lie still
motionless.

I listen, don’t look,
pull the sheets
overhead. Hear
the suggestion of ghosts—don’t look—
to reinforce the face
with vision
would result in my death no longer
remaining mere
rumor.

You fear circles. I simply
fear.

Not ready, not ready, not
even for bliss.

My contribution to a celestial symphony
only discord, one
accentuated
by the unrestricted memory
     of small victories, solid defeats,
by the impasse of tenses, questions posed
to silence, potential....

An innocent once asked,
‘ What heaven with Hell?’

Now the cynic, fearful
of a death
as unremarkable as birth,
     yet unshaken in sleep,
asks, ‘What Heaven
with knowledge
of unforgotten failures?’

I recall days, anymore,
with much more artful detail
than when I lived them.
I move
closer to my Self,
acknowledge
this film, silent,
once upon a time based on a true story:
          the myths
          no longer match,
          the film out of sync
          with sound,
          the secular allowing
          more legroom for
          Godliness.

I remember so many days of nothing going.
I remember nights of pure uncut stasis.
I remember
because I do not have to go far
     to remember, nor
to dream:
          Asleep I run
          along rusty tracks, limbs
          of the sturdy Ohio,
          tracks in such disuse they
          emit the stench of
          collapsed veins, tracks
          bordering the Body
          the Blood
          thick with the muck
          of too little movement
          of too little time spent
          seeking, or rejecting,
          nourishment....

Sometimes I lose my way, even in dreams.
Maps of my own devising betray.

          ....The film runs, captures me
          on an old-wood railroad tie
          wishing for the river, You,
          who answers with, at first, stiff
          movement, then picks up speed
          and passengers, recalling destinations,
          blood re-circulating
          as the carriage is raised,
          glides across tracks of resurrection
          water, and I stand, wait,
          time my jump perfectly
          to ride it out
          until the ghost is no more,
          and, awake at last,
          one need remind me of sleep.