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The Word
- University of Illinois Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
30 The Word And the moon folds the spoken notes away. Files into nether. And if the word immersed in water is uttered, it fractures into cells, the seamless bubbles rising, each a vehicle for the single syllable, an allotment of breath severed from the rest— And to burst would give voice in bit, the cacophonous pieces breaching the surface, a tangle, a flooded exhumation of limbs. And if the word pronounced in snow, so should the wet clots adhere forming the white bodies of birds, eyeless— And they fly, colliding into the others’ rising, each trying Ārst to reach the warmth, each with a shivering wing. For there was an old outline etched in the sky, like a coin burned in. Ancient. And beaming down, there spread in pools on the ground the moon-shadows: each fluctuating blot 31 like a different planetary water in which to step, submerge— and each waterhole with its own populations of the animals arriving, the animals, thirsty with desire— And to step into, follow through the other side of depth: all’s drenched, the combs ooze honey, all the sap veins overbrimmed, clear, and the hemisphere here a snow dome for the embalmed world. The lungs breathe sweet, a nectar for the gods, and fill— The capillaries glow with gold, a liquid pulse, a spill, for here the limpid light is drawn (lured) as venom is drawn: lengthening, as a melting bead of glass, adored, and the new steep scent, too: lengthening toward— ...