Keratoconus Alba, and: To Arrive with Cartoon Devotions

134 DANIEL POPPICK KERATOCONUS ALBA Watch the net of trees that is all but lost when painted white. Perhaps the branches are not leaking crows at all, but lace, black lace, though it is finally still not meant to hang before you like a veil * as you’ve seen it done in movies. Perhaps this is you having seen too many movies. In one, the branches turned to gold. Paint was dripping from the actor’s eyes. Perhaps it is not you but words like night composing one or two too many crowns. 135 TO ARRIVE WITH CARTOON DEVOTIONS 1. White evening & they move. Among them there are those who know you, those who will & those who may, but for the moment keep to cobble, skew the penchant bucking parade’s foresworn progression. A makeshift harmony whistles through their arms, the first tone of the elbow, the second setting off the weave— some questions posed for your amusement— when you stand before the mirror, what animal do you most often mimic; does your mouth fog out as you step closer; what image bends between your lips; does it obey the axis given; what song comes on the radio. The hundreds lift their arms & raise one finger. 2. As one element (you say leaves) here unhooks from what it followed, rightly so, a kind of grace lights off from where it waited, or was tethered, if you must, if you allow that sail will not name wind, as if a cloud and arc of rain would slip another pitch toward blue if your umbrella tapped a moth, the sun, a slice of headlight, falling leaves. Is this the voice of posing or regard? You walk the rows with a throat of reeds. What figure hears your thin resolve; listen, there are those who catch that redwing nod without police & bells. DANIEL POPPICK ...