A KIND OF SHADOW KNOWLEDGE

There is such action here

The yard we can’t decide

is front or back

a black fly chasing my breath

Courtney tentative on the harmonica


The leaves dip and twist

frantically modern

though their shadows show

them up

The bees are out-buzzed


by the hummingbirds

at the feeder, where ants go steadily

to be drowned, now

Courtney reads The Known World

as wrens fill in


and neither of us feels

the least bit

ironic about it


* * * * *


We live amidst the machines

of our thought, a geometry

of sleeplessness forged

by quiet, unnamed desires

I pay my ear


to the simple, ridiculous

happinesses

a plane blanketing

the air, a bee

scissoring through, aghast


at the plural

way these interloping

ghosts overlap—there is either

truth in the unique startle

at the jackhammer’s


bony knock, a woodpecker

(I swear) looking on, or

it is just as well

nowhere, a patently human

selfishness that wants


the things to thing

for us, wants

to see so as only

to settle into a false

and blinding peace


* * * * *

There are disturbing

tides, the unkind

kind, giving only

the heaviness of rage, a mouth

heaving waters whose unwanted


wash wears us

to bone and one

is not simply become

wet, but

also dry, white


As such each

must leap from its otherwise

inert, must locate

some tacit

activity in the switch


We have eyes and so we

watch, fingers and so

we catch, we parade idiotically

until one

feels need of stampede


* * * * *

When fixing my hernia

the technicians shaved

a strange hairless rectangle

into my heavily-tangled pelvis

and painted it yellow


This is why you must trust me

because, just maybe, the abstractions

I put forth are born

from a kind of shadow knowledge

and though I’m not trying


to fix you, just maybe, it would seem equally

outrageous to think

there’s nothing terribly

wrong with either of us