Structural Interview

Structural Interview

In a way, I used to be bigger
       In what the body can be made to do.

Did you know me? My father
       Calls just long enough for a mouthful

Of air to fill his lungs. How quickly
       It slips away. Did you think we wanted

To be like you? Impossible to tell
       From the voice on my machine;

My mother's anointed mouth open
       With a final prayer.

And on into the silence again.
       In one version, I had a sister.

Did you know her? She writes poems,
       And in one version, she never seems

To get older. Not ash really.
       If anyone asks, I'll tell them I'm happy.

Will you meet me for coffee?
       She doesn't answer. Because as all things

Have their answers, yes or no,
       My lover used to be bigger

In my version. Sometimes I dream
       Of mysterious lighted rooms, the muted clangor

To what our mouths once made. I imagine
       I just barely escaped

My parents, calmly speaking about something
       With no reference to the human.

In a way, I don't know what to believe
       Forgetting for a moment I'm trying to love

Me. A sound will leave my throat,
       Then the little singing verse of urges.

The blue heart is a surfeit of sublimity
       in the mild air. In a way, I once thought

Of the day that I don't ever at night
       Any more fear each little death of sleep.

When I walk down your corridor, I once thought,
       Birth & Consequence. A small windgust
       Behind me without origin.
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