suspended launch
in the steam flotilla,
an intellect not cold,
rather, all fire,
all sensate piston
and receptive insight,
the tough, collected
wire-tangle
of desire no
concrete obstacle
to digging quite a trench.
Solemn consultants muttering in their beards
huddle together, arms heavy on shoulders,
once again landing terminally on time
as though a map could serve without its legend.
Climbing up
from the pipe,
several soft gnarls
of burning longcut
embody either
his othermindedness—
or some nuance
of the letter just read,
a sigh inscribed in silence.
In several acute
phrases, inference
like a hooded falcon
interrupts decipherment
by giving a velvet
shake of its wings.
Seeing that the pivotal resolution hangs
fire among sunset October branches,
little wonder if their leaves fall silent.
When she marches bareheaded into the gale,
we hold our thumbs for her, as for any militant
Winged Victory might claim she never met.
One revolving searchlight
has aimed strong
surgical probes
into mostly avoided
pockets of internity
while a longstanding
conflict of instincts
scores its frustration
and struggles wordward.
You’ll lift your head and see a flight of stairs
conclude at a granite wall, or a translucent
window let signal flares slip through where patches
of strategic whitewash have peeled away:
but how to withstand detonations of the uncanny?
If nothing is,
except on a human
scale, verifiable,
received arguments
court blank confusion.
One by one
the emigrants walked
through a wide pool
of spilled gilt,
dry-eyed
and not yet told
their Nikes had unreeled
a trail, a record,
dual, intricately patterned,
of golden footprints.