I hold the keys tight in my hand, I hold
the night close and distant, I hold my thoughts
close to my disquiet, I hold my tightness like
a resistance, I’m not trespassing in the world, this
path is my own breath – shadows are grainy thoughts,
tricksters, surfaces, they begin stalking, and above,
wires float in ancient rage reborn, the newest gust
broadcasting nonstop desiring and despising, unlike
these trees, these fecundities, shelters, sighs, whose
forms under stars hold birds – I try to ignore
the cybernated howl mocking this body me, this body
my claim on the real along any road as though I
violate it, that howl of beastly excuse for
despoiling – shadows begin talking as they fleet and ghost
as though darkness is nothing though it is fully
here – dark is a colour a fabric, a curtain, a cover,
in the way dark extends itself, I breathe it in, something
cruel or casual, something kind, can I also be something
of the dark hiding – I hold myself, this body a surface,
a well, I hold this scapula, rib, patella, I call to myself,
whispering through the throat’s isthmus, I advise
all my bones, ‘you hold’, I advise my nerves, ‘you hold’,
my blood ‘stay quiet, within’, if I breathe out a cry,
am I more real – I hold myself close, as if holding
is anxiety and strength, as if I am shadow,
suggestion, memory, a house of spirits, I hold
my place and my fear, as primal in the way bellies are
for birth and the fist, what shows up on my skin are
other truths, if I eat words, do I swallow lies, whose
language breath will I exist in tonight, if not the owl
or the breeze, a language that is trickster, cover,
lie, suggestion, a howl, a murmur – I am not
a story to tell, I am not someone’s metaphor, the dark
isn’t a symbol, it’s a time when I walk – there are no
memorials and no armistice, as though everybody
forgets, this woman that woman, darkness is pierced
as it pierces, my feet crunch over the season, falling
is a perpetual season, leaves fall, my voice falls into
myself, if I meet another voice, another
hand, another truth – if I fall in the dark, who
will hear
Notes on this poem
The words and phrases ‘beast’ from Helga Olshvang’s ‘Can’t We See Where We Are …’ and ‘existing only in language’, ‘desired and despised’ and ‘belly’ from Alla Gorbunova’s ‘cities: an inventory’ have been used, obviously, in different contexts in this poem.