AQUATELOS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty ... - Cornell University

8. THE CYCLE
somewhere in the tub a heart sends out waves
it’s in the baby in the bathwater
water in the tub
in the heart beating waves
through bodywater through bath
as human sounds gather as motes
days and days of moments learning the languages
of consanguinity continuance of gene
of five-legged American English mind
of devastating shocklove vertiginous
knowledge of time’s evaporation
of cablespool regrets declined connections
of the worth of mirrors of mouths
as motes gather as human sounds
as condensation nuclei beckoning around them
come come orphan ions i am the soul
come clean into my zone and remember
somewhere in the air a cloud awakens
scar of past encounters seen only as passing
scars and circumflexes over the father
the most of it returning silently to the tub
where it laps in the forming mindlap
of the sitting baby plashing making swim
laps the water beating waves
the least of it brushing bodysalt sebum
of the father lading heats somewhere
near the ceiling where it calms into liquid again
drips floor father tub where it laps
in the beating in the heart in bodywater
in the bath in the father’s eyes
as sounds gather as human motes
the baby adrift sidelong one ear tucked
under water migrating down the brown drain
come come down it calls up through a spiral
i am the self come memories and condense
a lasting relation in the quiet tides of matter
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