An Essay to End Pleasure


By each inadequate window in the dark
low-ceilinged house; by the river

spiked with ice; on the bridge
from town to county; at the market

where Amish sold pretzels and cheddars, cheap toys, greens, headcheese
and livers; along snowed roads slow

to the mailbox; after floodwater
took the curves toward the highway; I waited

and he never came. Downed, crested,
covetous,

birds rushed what the river left the last
crust of snow : plume,

leaf, branch, pod, silt,
thistle : they browned in thaw, softened

in dirt. I waited
past thaw, after ground

and riverbank took the water back; the walk
dotted with cherry blossoms,

when I left I wrote :

                              rain’s noise to flush weight
                              of camellias, scentless as birds,

                              from the bushes. Downed, they
                              brown, soften in the dirt. May

                              turns fog on a spindle: thread
                              to bind recent greenery to back-

                              ground: sewn woods wild
                              as backs of tapestries. The voice

                              grows archaic with noticing;
                              the mind, precise. A new kind

                              of bird feeds at the river: think
                              of weeks the eye will take

                              to count its feathers; years
                              the mouth will wait to drink

                              what small air from its bones—  

and now, here, March turns fog
on a spindle :

what comes to the eye comes as light
after winter has washed

its white sand at least twice, as if ornament could adorn
the worn shore of the ordinary : goose shit on the lake path, a flotilla

of plastic bags in waters currents carry under the city. We come back
to this : as if inevitable, the sheathed cock;

as if necessary, the thighs part;
and the mind divided : his mouth here, then there

my hand : meanwhile the eternal internal
ache relaxed past pleasure stammer

stammer my mouth
apotheosis

precious. But it is all dear :
the thread that binds

recent greenery to background,
kisses tentative, pressing, each

to sustain a pattern, the sewn
woods wild

as backs of tapestries.
Watching the work of his pale skin

gather, gooseflesh
where my mouth just was : we are

as much as we see : the voice
full-throated with noticing; the mind

precise. How the mouth knows what the eye knows :
egret, heron, bittern,

grebe, gull, coot, cormorant,
scaup, mallard, but

friend, a new kind of bird
feeds at the lake : think of weeks the eye will take

to count its feathers; years
the mouth will wait

to drink what small air from its bones.  

First published in Gulf Coast.