pond

doesn't help to know of resurrection
when you are bagged in this skin
this body which wishes to remain
immortal as change

my new place fronts a pond. there are ducksi think of you, and bread.

today my son and i walked to the last pond.
each of them and there are five
is spring fed mostly but drainage pipes
collect the run off from the concrete parking
lots, the invasive bermuda grass, mowed,
floats on top
green & trashy. at the last pond
is a duck and her lings. nine of them,
one with the down of the sun.
i forget to pay attention
to where i walk when suddenly she eyes me
on the path toward her children. i
recognise the fear there, avoid
her anger. in the second pond
there is a duck attacking
something. a piece of cardboard
or a loaf of bread. as we approach

we see he sits atop another duck
pushing her head underwater, over and over.


he calls me tonight. my lover who is lost.
i shout to the stars fuck this
i will not need
i will never care again
what does it matter if i do?
the system has him as firmly as the male
duck has her, and by extension me.
we exist in our surroundings. the outer
is the inner. the sages assure me and can i not
see this for myself? oh i understand

plenty. i understand it well. it's what i feel
that cannot be exculpated. dreams
tossed on a train bound
for treblinka. the reiteration of history
the reification of the dishwasher
on a night like every other night.

i yell at the universe which is fancy for a god
i refuse to acknowlege with anything
but fury. i won't care. you can't make me.
i've seen your signs. when you take this one
just leave me alone. i'll just join the other bricks
in the silence of this side of the wall. i'll be
the duck underneath.



but it isn't enough. there is no voodoo left.
the bowl is filled with water, bodies float
along the streets. my superstitions
and the signs i make to ward off hexes
have failed. from inside the sunken bourbon
bottle, a blues sax refuses tries to rise
in a little bubble to the surface
and finds that surfacing is a myth
its told itself since the flood.

waves of probablity converge on the future.
i'll collapse before the opening of the tomb.