Alternating Current

Look how fast the past catches up to us5 minutes ago says one and ta da!:the trivial vital, task more light-laden,

a shadow-colored surgery of regenesisas we taxi in the ambulate circusremembering what another one said:

No community without communitywith the dead. There should be a mooninside the fox, the fox purring into

the beast's answering machine,a man talking on the phoneas if 35 cents could last

as long it takes to say the right thing,a light bulb entirely unlike the oneswung above the head during questioning.

Viet and Matthew show up and howimportant! both the showing upand that they are Viet and Matthew.

Out of view down this same streetis the store where Nicky buys the ringinset with tiger's eye while I stand

next to history's hacking cough.Ornate silver throne. The commoncold. Are we awake enough to remake

the waking conditions? One closersays There should be a moonwhich decides not to leave us alone.

What we're struck with should openour hands. Bring the blossomed thinginto sharp autumn: what might be seen

as evanescent paraphernalia is realizedas extensions of each body in a congregationof spheres: night of luminescent nerves,

lantern made of mist and adhesive light,transmission on the tongue like a wasp nestgently proffered to fire and flight. Tremors

radiate toward the center and back out. First,the colors must be rescued, first the storiesand before that we must be saved by stories.

Noon throws a deep shade here,where historically the rationale of weaponrycountermands the rationale of the hands:

you see how the stories have been takenbut what feels stolen has only been usedand is not used up. The doctored moment

slicks itself over the eye like quick-set cement,the quickening sea painted as frozen steel—Now bring the sea out of jail, now

the good sorcery of the heart, now a bellswung like an axe until an axe sounds likea bell and a bridge appears. I want to be

a bridge but movement through the caféis a movement through perfumesdifferentiated as ephemeral nations.

We are needles in rubble asked to singthe valley of the record. We constantlyenter time's umbrage and finery and record

jolts: across the street a sound like a gunshotcries out—blackbirds shoot upfrom the trees, the boy lowers his body

nearly to the ground then explodestoward the hoop. A miracle: when no oneis harmed. We must return the best world

to the world, the gifts we hoard as ifthey'll be lost by being given back.Because the exterior torn, the interior

hurt. Stitching is not healing but pleasea beneloquent scar. I have one heartthat is all reception: ridiculous streams of light,

obscene availability of speech, the mending,the broken. I have one heart that liveswith a deer asunder inside her.

Listen. She says it best:For this we are grateful.By this we are charged.