Two Poems

I SAW A SWAN COME OUT OF THE WATER

 

I.

Rings are the easiest things to steal.

I had to ask a man to stop taking pictures.

One time I saw a swan come out of the water

to drown a dog.

You only have to try them on.

To drag it under and drown it.

One time I left eight naked velvet fingers.

This man put me inside him and I went.

 

II.

This man had a silver ring with a pinch in it.

I worked in a laboratory for years.

Holidays as first dates are impossible.

There we dyed thin slices of mice-brain

until they glowed pink. My God—

I said, you’re too young for me.

—they were beautiful things.

If I were his wife I’d have swallowed it.

 

III.

I know how to take nearly anything.

Begin with I want you and work back

is how it seems to go. One time

I stole a man’s dog. Put it between my legs

and drove off with it.

The mice came in dead to us.

It was a little thing. I stole once.

A frozen ring around their necks to mark them.

 

HOLOGRAMS

 

1.

However small, we come to wonder

how our power is every great small.

We make ourselves ready, each to us according:

such visitation is a great filament.

When we are bodies, which almighty small

we may appear:

how, natural.

how, manifold.

2.

Such vision is a figurehead we hold with our everything.

However small the worshipper of us all—

O, of us, here, the small same.

3.

Gaze together which were under mortality together.

Gene together which were under mother together.

Gem together which were under matter together.

We come together, which, astonished, shall receive.

They are the work of the same that are thy work.

4.

Mother: all that what might be,

there is always other echoing.

When we are bodies that make each other

under almighty and wonder

let us come to see one figurehead.

Let us in visions.

In visions let us small

wonder. We are

filament, then go under.