Wheel With a Single Spoke (18 page)

that speaks.

I can't believe a bird can fly,

that it can glide on what is not,

or that you are in love with me

and I'm not even your dog.

An air of loss exists

and a stillness of black goats,

but neither have I inhaled

since I became your dog.

Don't you have anyone else to hit

with that clang yanking out its own statue?

Here, boy, here I am, hit me!

Only I am your dog.

Nothing more ambiguous than a straight line,

nothing more painful than a wedding

. . . and more foreign than a party

on New Year's

nothing is.

Nothing more free than sleep,

nothing more liberating than weariness

and compared to the young couple

who yesterday I saw kiss,

nothing is more of the past . . .

Nothing more durable than air

and nothing more invisible.

 

I am a locomotive steaming

out of evaporating rails.

I am a bird flying

out of petrifying air.

I am a word spoken

that leaves behind a body.

I am time leaping

from a crystallizing hour.

I am grass

bent under verdancy.

I am hunger running

ahead of a gut.

I am one born

from a mother so true

as I am untrue.

You're distant now, Mama,

you don't feed me from your tit,

but your hand.

We're eating in the house now, Mama,

we're eating in the dining room.

Your breast has turned to wood, Mama,

a table and glasses, the nipple of your tit.

Give us drink, Mama, to me and my friends,

and after we have whet our thirst for life

give us death, O Mama.

A dog bites me,

ah, I peer through him

as through a window.

Darkening dark

see

the gates of light.

Night starts to fall

over a house in the country

with a wooden table in the backyard

where they sit and drink and talk –

my parents and someone else's

the mayor and stable hand

schoolteacher and priest

and some more people who sit and drink and talk.

At the same time

superimposed upon them

a man with a black cloak,

wounded by history

or whatever else,

goes off in the dusk over the field

getting smaller as he goes

dying as night falls.

Snippets of talk, clatter of forks and knives

glugs of pouring wine

and above everything

the schoolteacher shouting louder than anyone else:

– At the end of the day, what is life about?

And the priest shouting louder than anyone else:

– There are no signs, prayer is pointless.

And the mayor shouting louder than anyone else:

– Everything we see is the same! Always the same!

Superimposed upon the people at the table

crossing, it seems, through each one

in the field black with evening,

a man with a black cloak goes off,

his thoughts audible across the field:

I was born in the worst century possible,

I lived in the strangest heart possible!

That's how his thoughts sounded

while he got smaller

like a black spot on a black spot

getting larger.

Heavy air and calm heat

beside the table in the yard, covered in shadow

untouched by the gasoline lamplight,

a mute rustle in the lantana bush.

A shiny eye with a matte shine,

an eye as big as the lantana bush

opens shiny and matte and closes.

The people at the table have their backs turned;

a second of silence then wine glugs into glasses.

Superimposed upon the rectangle of the table

far away, crossing the field

and cutting through the table at the same time,

a man with a black cloak

and behind the man with a black cloak

a hectare of black field opens suddenly,

an eye shining and opaque and black

closes as quickly as it opened

while the man goes off with his back turned.

A dog tied to an oak in the yard

yaps banging his chain,

the oak's trunk opens

and a shining black eye blinks.

– Quiet, damn dog, shouts the stable hand,

and throws a mug at him.

A star widens like a pond

behind the man with a black cloak,

and a boulder at the gate

opens a shining black eye and closes it.

– I live in a strange heart, the man thinks,

one is the attention of zero,

two and three and four and five

are nothing other

than the non-attention of number one,

thinks the man with a black cloak, further off,

while behind him

the black horizon opens an eye,

immense, shining, and black,

and closes it.

My parents and someone else's

sit at a wooden table in the yard

of a house in the country

and drink with the priest and mayor

with the schoolteacher and stable hand

and whoever else is at the table,

and superimposed upon them

a man in pain with a black cloak

crosses the field toward night.

Some speak, another thinks,

while large eyes open and

close behind them

and evening decomposes into night

and their meal in the yard never ends

and his walk with a black cloak in the field

never ends

and night runs into night

ever thicker, ever thicker.

Not how I am am I

but how you are am I

Not green, not yellow, not red,

but very green, very yellow, very red,

Not how I am am I

but how you are am I

Not purple, not very purple,

but very, very purple.

Not how I am am I

but how you are am I

a kind of you am I

that you would not let be me.

You take a piece of stone,

carve into it with blood,

polish it with Homer's eye,

plane it with the sun's rays,

until the cube is perfect.

Then you kiss the cube countless times

with your mouth, with others' mouths,

especially with the mouth of
la infanta
.

Then you take a hammer

and bust a corner off the cube.

Everyone, but everyone, will say:

– What a perfect cube this would have been

if that corner wasn't broken!

I.

The eagle's wing had a round hole,

like a ring of gold too tight

to crown the emperor's forehead.

Through it nothing went toward nothing,

no one shone through its wing,

the no one who longs for nonexistence.

The eagle rose through the air, timidly

as if through the breath of a child, –

falling, first it became a turtle, then

white balls of hail, then

only the cold of him remained, only the cold.

When a hole was made

by its body into the earth

the smack of its fall

no one heard;

the grass was green and fresh,

its plumage changed color, to green.

Worms from the bowels of the earth

came to ask:

– Do you want magma or lapis lazuli?

– No, it responded, I want air,

air, I want air.

Worms from the bowels of the earth said:

– We have sand, can you breathe sand?

– No, I cannot breathe sand,

I have nothing to breathe sand with.

Worms from the bowels of the earth said:

– If you had a pyramid, could you breathe sand,

if you had a pyramid, could you breathe sand?

– No, the eagle responded,

I have no pyramidal thought, the eagle said,

I have no pyramidal thought.

– Then what do you have? asked worms from the bowels of the earth,

then what do you have, what do you have, then?

– I don't, said the eagle, I don't have anything;

my only property is absence,

a round hole in my wing instead of a sun.

I don't, said the eagle, I don't,

I don't, said the weary eagle, dying.

– Bon appétit, said worms from the bowels of the earth.

– Bon appétit, responded no one.

II.

– Bon appétit, responded no one.

– Bon appétit, said worms from the bowels of the earth.

– I don't, said the eagle, dying.

I don't, said the eagle, I don't.

A round hole in my wing in place of a sun,

my only property is absence,

I don't, said the eagle, I don't have anything.

– Then what do you have, what do you have, then?

Then what do you have? asked worms from the bowels of the earth.

– I have no pyramidal thought,

I have no pyramidal thought, the eagle said,

no, the eagle responded.

– If you had a pyramid, could you breathe sand,

if you had a pyramid, could you breathe sand?

worms from the bowels of the earth said.

– I have nothing to breathe sand with.

No, I cannot breathe sand.

– We have sand, can you breathe sand?

worms from the bowels of the earth said.

– Air, I want air!

No, it responded, I want air!

– Do you want magma or lapis lazuli?

came to ask

worms from the bowels of the earth.

Its plumage changed color, to green.

The grass was green and fresh.

No one heard

the smack of its fall

by its body into the earth

when a hole was made;

only the cold of him remained, only the cold,

white balls of hail, then

falling, first it became a turtle, then

as if through the breath of a child, –

the eagle rose through the air, timidly.

The no one who longs for nonexistence

shone through its wing,

through it nothing went toward nothing

to crown the emperor's forehead

like a ring of gold too tight.

The eagle's wing had a round hole.