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  • Angel at the Gate*
  • Nathaniel Mackey (bio)

  —”mu” one hundred seventy-first part—

  “The metaphysical wishes of the  body,” I’d read in Wilson’s book.A passerby with a beehive hairdo          con-  firmed it. Sister C and I steppedoff the bus. Was it body’s wish  to rise above or to add to itself I          won-    dered out loud, a wish for more  body or a wish to be more than    body, a wish to be rid of itself. Thelady with the beehive hairdo wore a          par-  rot-feather boa, twinning her hair’s    wish to be wing, Sister C said, tobe word, to be sigh, to be sign, to be          book . . .    A passerby with a scarlet Afro  walked by next, frizz and flaming col-    or of another world Sister C pointed          out,  bodily whisk as soon as it got soon    gone, sad end it all comes to callingback as he passed out of sight. So it          was  we thought about time, vain pursuit.    Had a passerby decked out in peacock  feathers come next I’d’ve sighed . . . I          want- [End Page 141]   ed nothing if not to climb a soapbox,    nothing if not to send an amen Wilson’sway, say something about soul, no body          not    soul’s effect, the buzz, the lowered      eyes, the bitten lip. Come with us upthe Mountain of the Night Abdullah called  from the box, one glamor come back, a          lost  or a last flare it seemed . . . I was hold-ing what came to hand, trying to hold on,  contingency’s dictates contingency’s          angel,  soul body’s wish, viceversa [End Page 142]

________

  We stepped off the bus to the plat-form, the podium, pulpit, lectern,  bullhorn, soapbox I wanted it to be.          Ab-    dullah had my back I could hear,  baritone reach, baritone bottom,    no matter rectitude met lament. I          stood  tall affecting nothing if not stateli-    ness, stately aplomb I wanted my  address to come off with. I stood          float-  ing many a metaphysical notion,    soul’s bodily tenancy one of them  but only one, something seen in a          face  no face itself made good on, I lift-ed my arm, my heart above my head . . .  I stood stately floating many a sensate          no-    tion. “Mouth be my witness,” I swore,  “nose be my witness.” Mountain of the  Night notwithstanding, the blue star toobright to be looked at bore down on us.          “Eye,  ear, sphincter, genital opening be my    witness. Bodily gate be my witness,” Iswore. Sister C held my hand as I spoke,  amen’d my every thought. Bodily gate          bond-    ed her book she avowed . . . We were in  Hyde Park, the Speakers’ Corner. We    were in back of the East Bay it seemed,          thesense of being a band or in a band upon us    again, the Dialectical Sound Ensemble  the band we’d be, this or that drummed          af-  fliction’s dreamt relief . . . Got there clue-less, remained the same no matter, I toed  a tight Heraclitean line, truth be told truth          hid-    den, the appeal of parts notshown [End Page 143]

________

  I toed a strict Ogotemmêlian line, thewonder we wear nothing underneath  no wonder, body’s metaphysical wish          the    wish it were so . . . Soul’s bodily wish  was two lovers’ wish to be one I held    forth, polis’s wish to be one we of like          order.  I spoke in search of clime, truth be told a    hidden truth, hidden treasure, familiarity’s          wear    warded  off [End Page 144]

Nathaniel Mackey

Nathaniel Mackey, editor of the experimental literary journal Hambone and former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets (2001–2007), is author of a number of volumes poems and fiction, including Bass Cathedral (volume four of his ongoing serial fiction From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, 2008), Bedouin Hornbook (fiction, 1986), Splay Anthem (poetry, 2006), Nod House (poetry, 2011), and Blue Fasa (poetry, 2015). He is also author of two books of literary and cultural criticism, Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and Experimental Writing (1993) and Paracritical Hinge: Essays, Talks, Notes, Interviews (2005). His numerous honors and awards include...

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