Epithalamion

At once this dragnet of cousins Whips its way into your presence saying None of them among us. They are Oracles on the court of midnight, The tight filigree of a mind or your Splashing around in, your pandemonium Of copper graffiti inexpertly put up. They make weapons of furled hands. “We will walk, but our bones will carry Ribbons of lead, or we will, like Acrobats mill-headed in 3s (3 blades, 3 hips, 3 tongues), answer to what comes Before, what comes before?” Eleousa, Master of Dark Eyelids, eye opening Like a fennel seed, you are generous Or are you not, do you shore up and Wink at the soul? What does the soul say Other than “my divorce from . . .,” “tan Holiday . . .,” “smoking crystal in teak rooms . . .” But should have asked, “What do you See?” The sun a sequence of fans, a bridge, Only so exquisitely cabled as to make us Still—shall we fall Or travel between bridges Among the robust, sane clouds, A face cut from smoke, heat, and light? The sun, dancing in a vial, the initial Memory of what it was to be born— Doberman of a sheer-white universe— To school out—the audacity of rising Without name or color to new rooms, New youth, fruitful, born singularly To precise moments not in epiphany But duration—as under new weather We become—in action, receive—our Bodies uncasked like umbrellas under The flamingo-red light of the racing day.