What is left after all the hoopla of rhetoric's dissolve

What is left after all the hoopla of rhetoric’s dissolve


{Take me out of myself,
breathe me
into something that is closer to nothing-
a shape for which nothing can pretend it is everything,
because- it is.}


We sat out
in the long grass

the dandelion seeds
in their pappus’s

like white silky feathered stars
carried,

and tangled in the sea
of gilding green
blades

that moved thick
in rushed currents of breeze, like seaweed-

they’d tangle under the weighted air of salt or water
and eventually they’d fall and settle down,

jut- yellow sunny flowers
coined as weeds.

We’d stay here and watch
the supposition of natural things moving along in perfect procession.

And I envied the way you see,
even in the stark blue daylight

you could trace the outlines
of stars and their constellations

and I almost believed
that I could see them too-

under that perfect veil of powder blue.

The river at the bottom of the farm
like green amethyst

drew from memory, its way
to the glittery sea-

the same way I used to map my way from this modern mess,
always to you.

I remember the day before you left,
you kissed me

in that field we loved.
You kissed me with such urgency

like your mouth was a slip-knot of flesh,
and my willingness to lose myself, surprised you.

You untied my corset lips,
and I felt the rhetoric’s dissolve from my tongue,

I watched the exodus of people moving along in their usual way,
and I felt the insignificance of social contracts, as they faded to vellum.

I felt just how far into the universe
you meant to go

that day,

and how those moments moved
without a word
so quietly

and so impossibly slow-
just to watch you go.