For James Schuyler
How is the sky like a grater, Jimmy?
What is sent up for shredding?
Touches blue-bore and spark-moon,
Cloud or torch in a rush against—
No, not again, this
Is how I am like a grater.
So, what comes down lesser?
Smaller, not sky. The sky
Is neither catalog,
Nor inventory,
Litany; it is not
What comes down.
The sun sets.
You can’t see it.
I’ve put too much stock
In the pot. A carrot then.
Stalks of fibrous celery chopped down.
The pot is hungry and inconceivable,
A manic boiling, now, not always
Roiled like this, sometimes, never crying
Unable to get out from under the covers,
in bed as hilled leeks. A planned community.
Sliced thinly, not shredded alive. Small circles
Small miracles, or. I listen to Le Roi Malgré Lui,
“The Reluctant King”, on my Playstation 4
And curse the prism-sun blasting the laptop’s
Lungs and abdominal cavity. It is your task
To know when I am in this room,
It is your task to know when I am in this room.
It is your task to know
When I am looking through these eyes
Or through these eyes.