Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Deuteronomy 28: In Writing

Your land will be bronze,
a sky of iron,
as the earth rains down
a shower of bone.

You will not be calm
You will not find rest
for the sole of you foot.
For your shivering heart.

In the morning you say:
Cover my eyes
with darkness
In terror of night
when darkness
rises in your heart
you say: Would it be day.
You grope the afternoon
for air.

When what you see you cannot have
and what you have in not
yours because it’s taken
and your heart leaves your chest
and you pounce on it starving
and the earth unravels
unwinding threads into the sky
like your life, that billows before you
a frayed shirt
that will not keep faith.

You cannot trust
that look in the mirror
you cannot trust
your face, distended,
like a sentence said backward
like a palindrome unraveled
like a poem recited in reverse
eyes out of focus
mouth slack
teeth glistening in hyena mouth
who will eat whom first
when you trust
no one
when your right arm slices your left?

I trust you, you whisper
to the torturer’s whisper.
The pain, at least, is

real.

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