At the Golden Hour in Early Spring

I

Exhumation at

Last!

Declares the warm rain

For all the pallid cheeks, still in

Breath, how lovely in death, white

Lips parting

To drink the falling lifeblood

In desperation

As a suckling mongrel, the soft pink

Forehead

Cradled against the warm curve

II

Terror is a storm in the east that, despite

The architecture of our race

Awakens the primordial self suppressed

The self

That senses the thing to come

And thrashes against

Like the noose over the convicted man

III

Of all the capital crimes,

To be born is the most heinous, to seize

And prey upon this Earth as parasites do

So I take a moment

To consider my own violations

Upon a solitary wooden bench

The people see me and they do not see me

I am not but a background                                    

Object

To be taken casual inventory of

But not so righteous as to make an impression

I am content with my two faults as they are

Read to me:

Space

Breath

                                                (inhale)

Breath

Space

                                                (exhale)

And am not so contemptuous to ask

For more than my granted share of invasion

IV

I can see

In my own special blindness

A forced

Casual

Ty, meas

Ured swing

Of arm against stride, stride against arm

Like actors who’ve learned only to imitate walking

Each of them, burdens, errands on backs

Taxes on lips

Striving for leisure, but all the while resisting

The urge to walk faster

V

We have thus arrived at what Eliot would call

The Golden Hour, and here, at the dawn of the cruelest month

The promised flesh

Mounted upon scales of silver

And at the penultimate moment

When ascent ceases

Nothing is but waiting