chemical names, bird names, names of fire
and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,
delicate names like bones in the body,
rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,
names that no one’s ever able to figure out.
let me tell you a story about war. a man says to another man, can i tell you something? the other man says, no. a man says to another man, there is something i have to tell you. no, says the other man. no, you don't.
we were spies and the confidants
of spies, pockets and telephones, gathering evidence without
leaving any. spies feel like they know something important.
it is a feeling. opulent. grand.
we have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.
okay, so i’m the dragon. big deal.
you still get to be the hero.
you get magic gloves! a fish that talks! you get eyes like flashlights!
what more do you want?
i make you pancakes, i take you hunting, i talk to you as if you’re really there.
are you there, sweetheart?
here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted
an adventure, so i said have an adventure.
the straw about to burn, the straw on fire. here you are on the tv,
saying watch me, just watch me.
all this was prepared for me. all this was set in motion a long time ago. i live in someone else's future.
i stayed as long as i could, he said. now look at the moon.
to hide somewhere is not surrender,
it is trickery. all day the snow falls down, all night the snow.
i try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story.
we left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there.
but angels are pouring out of the farmland, angels are swarming
over the grassland,
angels rising from their little dens, arms swinging, wings aflutter,
dropping their white-hot bombs of love.
the directors agreed. the crates arrived. they added the pieces to the collection and the whole museum shifted. you have to understand it as it is. shining blue, shining green. this is also part of the story: how the story changes. this is something i forgot to tell you.
you said tell me about your books, your visions made of flesh and light and i said this is the moon. this is the sun. let me name the stars for you. let me take you there. the splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube...