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

2. PELLUCIDUS
Am I not living then?
I swear, that rents in the cerements
dab my sight with the gone:
my scant cheek, other skins.
A snarling cousin. A certain blueberry patch.
Cotton plants in the shape of clouds,
that I picked before dawn—the dew
increased their worth. Clouds in the shapes
of clouds. My father’s glittering hoe.
A fingernail sliver we found
after the funeral. The heat appeared to me
as an idiot’s face, heavy and cheerful,
innocent of its weight. Am I then?
A similar moon pursues
a noon-blue sun. Stars
strange as they remained. But I read
staying on they might, in fact,
be dead. Slicing slowly the night sky
like the plane I would fly, ripping
with my distrail the white turf
of cirrostratus, and following,
that other plane always,
that I could not see but now
I do, a shadow patient and pure
as a labrador retriever, swaying
between the flowing weave,
sealing up the sky behind
with its contrail straight and earnest,
tracker unmaking my track.
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