DAVID RAWSON

Intremities

Tell me a prophecy. I am standing between
the tree & the spotlight, snow-sparkle-fossilizing,
becoming landscape décor. This is the posture
of loss of direction. The cold is working in
to the intremities. Agency is so last decade.
 
Chisel me smooth into a porcelain dog. Bring me in.
I will bring the living room together. It is hard
to survive outside. When the visitors approach me,
I will wonder what they feel. Riverbanks
 
are instruments without interviews or footnotes.
There is no recollection, no loop-bursting vows,
elbowing for closure. I am not where a nose goes.
Blue-ribbon the surface thesis, & leave me cold
 
inside, letting go of every name, un-counting
worth-days. When did the antithesis become
so avid diva palindramatic? Why are we
caught up in feeling? I live in the down.
 
Tell me another. This is where prophecies come
to die. Instruments swallow instruments,
reassign value, or bury the idea of value
altogether. Leave me inside, a part.

David Rawson is the author of A Jellyfish for Every Name & Proximity (ELJ Editions).