15 Fragments of a Conversation

Tuesday, 24 February 1643
John Colman.Edward Wyman.Ska Nee
15 Fragments of Conversation


I speak to myself
my mind is dry
old waters raise my fall;
final plunge in empty lake

2.
Within the race of our Great river
black eyes in gray faces
creep upon the water.

3.
My land was full
violence, dark and random.
Death was serious
not romantic chance.

4
I love Ska Nee, as you knew her.
Our birth, a simple calculus;
the digestion of our hands complete
with sly acrobatic of legs by legs

5
There were harmonies
in Ska Nee, in the roseate dress of river;
fluted wings beside throat of waves
What kiss have we discovered
with our marriage at her spine
She was mother to mother
when our feet fell in air
and let to swing bashful
and blissfully solemn.

6
Is it simple to walk out the river past the bridge?
We rise without flight to peel gilt from pearl,
each layer lost to reveal that precipitous grit.
I am the viper of charm
in the gleam of Ska Nee's gig.
We settle down upon loam
with the buttery ferns for copulation.

7
Let us inside, among the shad
the roe, our cannibal, future meat,
our gracious age abandoned.

8
The tides tumble over fingertips.
At midnight we shall be bare
in Ska Nee's undulation.
Our figures gasp out of bounds.
Runners stand still.
The flat earth has won,
clocks not set.
I stand at the water,
to drink last trees.

We wait at the planet's door
our body wild divides,
these cliffs will stand straight
up and down with antimony's grain,
there was a terrible hum at death
I will translate the harmony.

There was a terrible pain at birth
I will translate the pleasure not sorrow.

9
After your murder
if I passed the Great River
I would divine it,
and when death closed,
I would prick my eyes
then my nipples
to savor red milk.

—Do not cut the mother
No hunting in her mouth.

10
Swannaken cut me down
to commit the murder to the murder.
I sleep in a double cradle;
all companions lost,
no John, Ska Nee.

I will dissolve the air
as Ska Nee taught.

There is no frame,
I will heal inside
the pulp of the stem;
my sight opens
color--pulls out its nerve

This was John's mask;
I put it on for survival.

Here are Ska Nee's female parts;
I will wear them
for her dreams
were given
with mercy.

11
What are my names after dying?
I am, truly, spirit?

12
First time you died
breathing smoke
from your mother's lips
shot as you stood at the cliff
in a second of laughter
Second time you died
breathing life into your mother.
You fell from the cliff and
were taken by the man
you call Edward.

13
I knew the end of the rivers
where the ocean stirs the clay
into slurry then indivisible
There was great honor
in stone and sand
in the fragments of history
baked to white bone.

14
Adored Ska Nee
at ledge where we fall
blessed thy arms
and kiss our mouth

Like the contemplation of the plum,
we are that plum; thee, sky
to unpredictable forest --
patient background to what
we met when time drew
itself in its own box.

15
The sun has one more shadow
to make before it paints the river,
and the heavens descend
into the mask of its mask.

When gravity is revoked
time falls down.

Have you noticed?





end