Parable of the Flood

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A flood is coming, you know. The forest animals have fled.

The cattle, having broken the fence, are long gone.

Your hands float like the moons of two planets

 

orbiting a dead sun: cold islands gone numb.

You are watching the boatwright hammer nails into wood.

Watching the boatwright fasten a horsehide sail to a spine.

 

You just stand there, like a tongue without a mouth

to control it. The boatwright asks you to undress

and lie on the ground. He would like your skull

 

to light the way, your pulse to turn the engine blades,

your eye to focus the telescope lens. The boatwright

wants to break your throat into a luminous creaking.

 

You understand the boatwright as a figure of God.

You have no use for these things anymore.

Someone should cut out the stars’ tongues, he says.

 

Someone should feed the moon’s intestines to the dogs.

Standing in the field between forest and water, you want

to feel. Kneel, nod your head. Lay it against his blade.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014