Roger fulfills some prophecies

…waterproof, like a felt swan

navigating a river of origin and ash.

Pablo Neruda

My hands are massive stone

columns I cannot raise to

defend me from my own calumny.

Horses are made of the same

hide, the same will, but everything

slows down what I once thought

I could become in the world:

astronaut, archeologist, fireman,

footballer, lawyer – all died

in the morass of indecision.

Perhaps there is a tumor growing

in my head. Perhaps I am

only a man on certain days – others

a simple animal with a wheel

and a block of cheese, hollering

at any song which reminds me

of the moon, or the searchlight

in my belly that my mouth parrots

away as love. And prayer?

is the answer to the tornado

my chest makes of my mistakes.

Right now I might be decaying

from the inside; my organs

turning, each one, to fists –

come, come to me I call

at the ships lighthousing themselves

towards my jagged rocks. Come

to me and be made of powder,

blood, aluminium, bone, dust,

ash. My body is its own

civil disobedience. My skin

is dried leaves – a moralist’s dirge

towards forgetting. There is a river

inside me which I only hope is coursing

away from the dams I’ve built –

but right now, I need money

to keep away the cold. What a calamity.

What a doorbell I have now

for a heart. Forget how I’m hardening.

Forget how each part of my brain

becomes a fossil and my body –

pure fuel – tinderwood, kindling,

a cross that once held my father.

My ambition is my own crown

of thorns. There is a morning,

a hill, the sun rising,

blood in my eye.