184

Father
Rockets fall across the face of the deep.
            In the night of all our worlds the archangel
                        Stands at the aperture, his prosthetic arm framed
In its light. My father a silhouette in the
            Door as we slept. Through the fabric of the
                        Walls, the outer structure of the house, the stars
Burning like the spent munitions of a far
            And distant, and meaningless war. Aureole.
                        Cancer, a pair of bright mandibles of petroleum.

There is no differentiation of power
            Across the fabric of reality. Counted, it would
                        Amount to zero, all quadrants interior or exterior
Or anterior, or without coordinate, report
            A nullity. An equivalence. Even this interior,
                        This exterior : my volition, my body : a threshold,
Lights arranged across a field of darkness.
            I fall again into fallacy : I wake. The inner walls
                        Of my skull elaborate a surface multifoliate across
The surfaces of these phenomena. I sleep.

            Fire is the amnion of my rest. Come down with me,
                        Darling, into the bed of the dwindling fire, and we
Will make an exegesis of our common hopes.
            What's yours is mine, Columbine! My projections.
                        My invert self, only you have communicated with.
My body decked in inarticulate colour.
            My hopeless force : my final, violent motions.
                        I have perjured my very form to be a palp. To pass,
Through the configurations of your gilded hands,
            For a mere meaning. I love you, my bright horse.
                        Be the cross that rises in the morning of my vanity.