The Turning
The satellites have been turned
off turned away from
other satellites.
The world is over.
The world without eyes turns
to the glare within itself.
The burning.
We burn.
He burns us.
He is burning.
Barren honey locusts’ branches
are dark beneath his skin.
Branches as dark veins writhe
in translucence.
The world is atomic.
He is obese in atmosphere.
Crude over destabilized
mountains whirlpools of dead perch.
Even the evil among us
see him in air circling.
See the man they’ve made
king killing us all.
Levitation
The argument its ferocity
disassembles your arms to specters that hold
your almost-mind from levitation reconnecting
to space the dust the charge.
Those glowing pieces will eventually dim.
But you have stopped wandering wallowing
in what has left you crumb because you weren’t
expecting to see Prince stenciled to granite.
The word love written in cursive crimson
on the beige building. You were the boy
roused to see the sky the color
he described rain. Over the birches that color
the same as priests’ vestments during Advent.
His stenciled face in Paris after you’d lost her gleam.
After you’d bought mushroom crepes you
spoke to the shop owner in Arabic.
He recited all of the Arabic words for love.
He could see your loss of it.
He watched you leave hoping your
real arms would return.
Prince lost a son.
Prince gave money to women who lost sons.
Perhaps Prince was lost?
Perhaps Prince lost someone in Paris?
But you aren’t lost now.
You are back in Detroit.
…we have gathered here today
Let’s go crazy…
A song raucous in your childhood
home when you are the only one there.
The air swiftly strange.
You turn to the river shimmering.
You are under something that shimmers.
