Eventually One Dreams the Real Thing. Marianne Boruch

      or ledge, staring out and —

      blink — down.

      So be it

      in the imperial age of the 21st century which seeks its shape

      in the drone, the kind

      put up to the killing, air-conditioned office turned bunker,

      Nevada, home of the sand flea

      whose life span is about two minutes the last

      I checked though in truth,

      I’ve never checked.

      It’s not a matter of just knowing.

      Or that maybe the virtual bombardier is weeping at night

      and feels bad about it.

      Truth told

      unto us: a worm shape is not

      the worm. A worm, merely born to it like

      an apple to its red eventually,

      or the sea to its vast floating crosshatch of garbage,

      plastic bags and cups from the big boats

      and every who-gives-a-good-damn cute little

      coastal spot, used-once forks

      going brittle, snapping, drifting out to join their

      cheap brethren, shining semi-continent of crap never

      to decode/de-evolve/delete

      for a thousand years if then, detritus of our time.

      This we, this our and us thing —

      A remote sensing device, garden path to a dark

      darkest wood in the middle, etc. Confusion

      as part, part coward, part crash

      burning to quiet there.

      Recalculate, recalculate, says the grown-up

      robo-voice in the car, you’ve driven past your turn.

      The turn was: I want I want alights on

      oblivious, mouth-sized. Somewhere = sobbing.

      It’s spring! A thing with wings taking aim.

Long Ago into the Future

      I get confused. So an acorn that

      pretends itself for years into the giant oak

      could nevertheless be windfall,

      kaput. One night

      does that. I’ve seen

      clear evidence in the woods.

      By the time the future hits, there will be a past

      with our names all over it. Names

      brought up from a distance

      do have a solitary, universal ring to them: here lies

      whoever and ever. Or whomever —

      depending on how

      the rest of the sentence goes, reversing fate,

      subject to object not

      seed anymore, not just-starting-out and maybe

      that brave. The such

      of such matters! The twilight way

      it weeps or lucks somewhere to come

      back there. Rooms,

      various unveilings. To be so

      infinitive about it — to spark, to hesitate,

      all you want.

Divide

      When elephants gather over a dead elephant

      or crows above a crow ripped,

      released by a hawk

      or that cat online circling, lying down against

      another cat still

      so still — you’re dreaming this, aren’t you

      bad dream? The room

      shifts, the whole house stopped, one car

      making its damaged

      down-the-street a reverence.

      When does grief become wonder?

      To divide then, one part empty as the cocoon

      a bagworm leaves on the stricken juniper

      tight woven so beautiful

      you’d never know its once-inside could

      kill a thing this woody and pine-boughy and years

      of its fragrance you walked by.

      The other part —

      all overflow get-rid-of-it,

      grief unto wonder unto an offering

      elephants bring huge in their delicate hovering,

      their ridiculous tact, close

      and closer, one cat

      in vigil for another, sudden crows

      quiet, a shatter no cry cry

      winnows up.

      Of course, explain. Of course they’re like us.

      Unless we’re like them. And only when

      words run and break apart and dissolve air

      not even air anymore, breath

      a rhythm, a backdrop — wait in wait, what’s

      left in us hopeless a long time for

      the fallen one to move.

Beauty

      at the Hunterian Museum, London