Lament Beginning With A Line From Khaled Mattawa
I have fallen into the embrace of my own rugged innocence
listener who suffers, in my innocence I’ve forgotten
language. I do not speak paths that make themselves
clear—follow me anyway. Burdock will catch your thigh,
hook the eye of your cotton weave, between two threads—
eye. There is the open place. Where burr sticks
any soft, vulnerable, membrane—please.
Please hear me.
I am inexperienced. Any photograph
is haunt. All through me.
A sun ray fell
across my shoulder. With a clang.
Hairs on my shoulders stand erect, hackles erect.
That’s what looking at these
faces with/held in screens do to make
my bones a singed wick and my muscle, my skin: flames.
There’s a mean sun. Daylight has many expectations.
I resist measurement. On the other hand
am impatient for forward progress, fruitful
change. I’ve lived seconds in the first year of my infant life.
I’ve been inside a thousand years in one day of grief.
How long will it take?
