After Maya Deren

in recognition
of the words

eye in a fogbank
obscured
by a red lantern

sight into reading
into sight

the chair
the chair of the board
bored through by cicadas

the military’s memory-- like ours
sight into reading into sight

after these shards
you can see them— the auras of figures
with identical gravities

WCW sifts letters from flower
forced breath from form

2.

air
when imagined
a breeze sifts through a church’s rafters

a cello could write as well as speak
were it not decapitated

lying in a field
of pylons

Persephone’s hell
is her divided mouth

her own symbolism
an island

her own breath
struggling against
the surrounding air

3.

I am not animated
but so meshed

the afternoon sun
is black and short
and surrounded by space

that space is
surrounded
by the sun

and into this loaded basement
refugees and emperors

freely trading
realm-rippling stories
of construction

how Hyco
always disappears

and drunks are able
to find the same door at night

by just leaning
on the fog