Test of Moving

  "We didn't know enough to move into a house."
                                                           ~Robert Bly

I. We didn't know enough to move into a house.

To be fair, we didn't know much of anything; only
that the torso is a machine that with age would carry us
away, that creatures have lived in less, that apartment
meant apart.  So we were torn between the sheets

and the spaces between them, not settled exactly as dust
but unknown as dusty settlers.  Though we weren't destined
to eternity, we pushed it out with every breath.  Moving, 
we have learned nothing of movement; too heavy to float,

too concave to cast a shadow.  Cave in, it whispers.  Implode.

 

II. We didn't know enough to move a house,

though not for lack of trying. We had done our home
work, after all, had studied the an(cien)ts, squeezed water
from a share of good cheeses, fooled the giant and his lackeys,

had even homestayed with the termites: still, the home stayed
still, stayed home, staid.  In the end we moved.  In 
the end we (de)ceased movement; were ourselves

moved.  In the beginning there was a truck, a wrecking
crew, the gaping hole of the earth where our roots had been. 

 

III.  We didn't know enough to move.

We lay unsheathed in a room where language had passed
its apogee, the only words remaining, reptilian, echoic;

such cruel words in a room without sound.  Even the furniture
had fallen quiet, stormless as a dead whale.  It happens

gradually, I'm told.  First the settling of the spine,
the atrophy of color, and at last, the unravelling.

 

IV. We didn't know enough.

Didn't know, for example, that the walls were communicating
to us, that there was a small amount of water pooling

in the tub, that soon it would rain.  What we did know numbered
in the trillions.  The stairs, the wind, the tiny popping of invisible jaws.

 

V. We didn't know

quite what would happen when we pulled on this string
or that.  The truth of it is that we were beyond knowing,

beyond the point where the knowing moves faster than the string itself.

 

VI.  We didn't 

understand the logistics of movement.  Were unable to marry
the sound of footsteps to the prints they made, the verity of transit.

 

VII.  We

will not leave the womb this time; we know enough now to leave 
                                                           well enough alone.

          *      *      *

      On the day of your death

I will eat

a live crustacean

without recognizing it

as a piece

   of your body.

The following morning,

when the monks come

to pull the pneuma

                     from your mouth

I will eat nothing.

         I will eat nothing

for years

that has not been placed

   on your grave

or on the graves

   of your ancestors.

        All this will go unknown

                        to my thinking

as I live out my life

in the mines.

Each nugget will appear

   larger than the last

and I will see myself

reflected       

   as in a mirror

and

each time I see my reflection

          I will appear to myself

more ecstatic

          than the last.

In Mexico it is said

                   nutrients

are stripped from food

that has

been left overnight

              on a grave.

The food exists less

in a state

of being-in-the-world

             and more

in a state of being-the-world.

    

       I will eat raisins,

mistaking them for grapes.

             I will eat a crocodile,

thinking it a cow

                   and

the skin on my face

will do little

to confine the bones

            of my cheeks

to their impossible shapes.

All this will go unknown

to my thinking

     as I live out my life

        in the mines.

When there is no flesh

left on your face,

the crustacean will have grown

so large

it will no longer fit

in my intestines

though my guts

          will by that point

have become

          comfortable.

If not for me,

for the crustacean

          who dwells there,

and will eventually

       take its leave of me.