By Anthony Gonzalez

In the weeds I
Felt the grasses I
Felt the rushes under my
Earthen toes
Sooty feet

I felt the lashes
Of concrete patches
Upon crusted fingertips
Plastered
In the midday dewy lens
Of christened sapphiric
Blooms

If forgotten I
Grow molden and I
Shift to dust and suffer
The rust of hinges
In the seasalt air
Molasses thick tears
Of mineral remains
Sticks of carbon
Fretting in
The dirt

Ill begotten I
Give passage to
The sun above though
Powerless to say
Otherwise

How mundane
How banal
That we who think thoughts
And wish to spread ourselves
Across the crust
Of existence
Like so much butter
Are doomed to stare
At a speck
On the plate
Of someone’s dinner

How we pass
From moment to bitter
Head heavy moment
Centrifuge in motion
While we sit
In stasis
On an axis of paper plain
Vanilla strained upon
Creamy sweet sweat
Under a heated lamp
With the mold
And the dirt
And the fungi
Who know not of us
Or themselves

Let me go
Or let them call
Upon a crippled craven
Who bares their fangs
In fear of the abyss

Let them see
The dismal stare
Of the dark
That I have seen
before
staring
Its empty stare

It’s in the melting
Where we reflect
Our creamy light
To the empty sky
And the vapid clouds
And the eternal stars
Dying eternal
Upon our fleeting eyes
Like heavenly specks
Of pearly dew
Upon the vacuous air
Of nothing

We’re merely crawling
The centrifuge sprawling
Its noiseless turning
Until nothing
Becomes nothing
again