Lilac Field

To perform death is something only humans would do No animal would sit there With a blank look on its face Just because the camera is there No no an animal would look directly in it Or cover its face, like the overweight Woman in the picture in the magazine By the room where I keep my bed What people don’t understand about beauty Is that after all it is not fleeting After all it is so gross to be that way That someone sees among you After all, to call into question I painted my lips, my eyes Only our scholars know that To perform is to be malleable To perform in language Or was it The large purple insect I let in the room Or was it the furred face — the hippo or the gorge That I was the devil in the wood In my own bones that I knew the face That I took that face Was it midnight blue sky No, were my wings iridescent Even in these lines The voice moves you What sense of exquisite cause Thought Moves you past these lines Into conversation With the undead I don’t know That is something You will have to answer for yourself I came back to this place to help you And that I did Shoot sparks of green and gray Through time What skin sack I put myself  in I mean for what, why, Or who Did I manage to do this for if not you Lilaced thing The soft rustle of  beetle wings In air that is warm and gray And is not strong But there, is there to carry us past it