Blood Prism

Sunburst, Rush Hour

29 Sunburst, Rush Hour Nothing unless something burns. Rust, even. It wouldn’t have to be this scorching blue, this light Shot through with light. The tales might begin In darkness, unto darkness then return, But there’s no story to it all until this thing— This light!—opens up the stage. Fires have been set, Signal, seed and molten core and wave and wave of it, This great destruction raying out at once, the gold And yellow into white, this driving through a needle’s eye From spectrum into blinding nowhere. All across The dictionary, off the page like pre-Columbus glory, Light simmers as the thinnest fabric we can wear. Take it in a little at the shoulders, as cars do Stopping off the Interstate because the sun is punching out For the day so brilliantly. Glory as a parasol, A weed in our blood. A voice inside a white coat tells you What you had is going nowhere, it’s defunct. You think I will live, and live you yet Though breathing it is harder to recall resplendence. These re- words, they’ll drive a body nuts: Redo or remission. Things stream out from centers Where we’re not for long, spoke of trees, spoke of water, Spoke of god-I-dodged-that-bullet: Then it’s near impossible to say what’s gone by. It’s so absurdly beautiful, this evening, The translator has not invented self just yet, We wait inside the cottage, little mice, happy with its emptiness. And still the circuit runs from light to dark and back to light, As if, within our thousand faces, cubists every one, We might fix what disappears before it can be written down. ...