Saturday, February 18, 2006

A Bit of Poetry

This is the last poem that I've written. I wrote up parts of it in my head while in Spain in winterbreak, and decided to sit down and put it all together. Comments appreciated!

Explanations for An Action Potential

"Action Potential: A brief, regenerative, all-or-nothing electrical potential that propagates along the axon of a neuron"
----

Sometimes I feel my skin is a city
in Spain, where you live as a gypsy.
I hate it how you stand in Madrid,

in El Museo del Prado, naked, hunching
over your body with a dolphin at your feet.
Symmetry, Spirituality: the crude-and-cruel

architecture of your breasts, as a statue,
much like you, but refusing to be photographed
alive. All we need is Cable Theory and models

to explain how I woke up in Barcelona,
dreaming about your molecules.
I wanted to wrap you in myelinated sheets

to conserve your signals or maybe open up
my chest and shelter you like a butterfly
in a bullet-proof vest. Back here, in New York,

I sit in the cross-town bus sometimes listening
to others in love, or searching for love, making up
explanations for the concreteness of angels

or theories of how space-time folds over our backs
when we swim together. A scientific theory
can always be proven wrong, so we believe in

astrology, the throw of the dice, our heart
as an oracle. Vividly I remember: awake,

thinking you were pressed against me, and I see
the marina instead, with the boats and the sea,
clumsily imitating your irises—not as grey, iridescent.

Two bodies with one head, our souls collapsed
like childish lungs. Confusion is always present
but never as canine until you are left alone.


Confused as the wall when I drive a nail through,
the same wall upon which I kissed your
necklace, leaving an antiquated aura of glory.

I pick up the phone and dial the number
but then sit still, my hypothalamus is
apologetic. Perhaps because of you; perhaps

the palpitations are simply from the firing squad,
ready to aim and fire before my own confused
cavity. I keep rearranging furniture at night

to be closer to the lights, to see you reflected
in the windows as a maybe-comeback-goodbye,
expanding, smiling, unraveling the arteries.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home