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Like a Near Fold
- University of Illinois Press
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23 Like a Near Fold In the courtyard, a matted chunk of feathers lies on the walkway, some membrane tethering a few unkempt shafts. The burgeoning generators billow their vaporous heave while the drainage system mingles old rains, coins in a pewter jar. For there were those we did not see nor did we hear but felt, as soundlessly they passed behind, close as an exhale and with the tall swaying of grasses For the skin so delicate, as petals, that through the white, a glowing rose up, a blue net surfacing from where from where or from how much deeper than beneath, than the fathoms of an eye, that the needlepoint pierced from below, that the skin stretched on its scaffolding of bones lets the piercing pass, as from the inmost chamber of the heart 24 For it comes as carrying an abacus of teeth beneath the flap of its satchel, capped in gold, the strung enamel rattling For it seeps as if nectar sang words, the wax in melted mounds of color For the patterned scraps of fabric stacked on a tack, ripped from source, its single threads loosening at the bounds For from without, the warmth a velour at times, a liquid shroud for the body— that like a nearer skin, one (too tired or cold, too cold) may turn toward that it envelop, enfold, a smooth entry like a pleat in air, there all the while, patient to clasp, like a last lover, sweet in its wait, soft, most of all soft— ...