in plainsong, canticle unhinging

i.

let dreamers make the mauve whole, let them remake me supine
lazy long-handle songs which make me write lazy rhymes, leonine
animals let out into ankhs; let white thyme be wild and appliqué;

ii.

let the white bunkers cave in, churching, let in locked-in ghosts
in the back wall, let the third postern be built in to let them out
the chancy; one hanging onto the ceiling fan by its shard blades
ariel legs spun round and round, to lop off naked reds; let the goers
shovels to make bright-barn space, more milk-and-water eyes?

iii.

let the posies look pretty beyond thursdays? let the ochre go
to buying cheaper, larger chapel flowers; chrysanthemums tempered
desire yet strangely templed, in vain, less easy, less old, rugged
rampart rafts and long boats made to shellac, coattail memory;

iv.

duets make for difficult transversals, because one always whets
lets the other follow through; so let out those unknown windows
that’s what it feels like to live under a levee roof, black, scow;

v.

let the matadors and mandrills go, maneless, redder rivets
recite sacristy regret as reason, and love still; old words remind me
of age and how it takes one by surprise, one celebrant decade
at a time; let this chaplet hope be wisdom arriving actually
intercalating like a material collective promise
(the principalities took the vases and left papyrus promises;
how they ensured no one a godsend landing place)

vi.

please let in the low plains, let slip those upper slopes, fenced in
under tree-line weather, underfoot like self-restraint,
so we never forget the castaways, and how hard it was to breathe;

vii.

hear the banshees? bloodlet flags for the mirrors?
let go, alone, let the flashing lights in, in on all the undercroft
awfulness; who will see the dead-set fenders drawing
silver arrows and stainless steely-green wings?
but for the draughtsmen, what chorus and alcove aria, which amens;

viii.

let this year’s gift be newly gifted? not to read mid-day montaigne
perhaps soft friendship, enough wrestling with sunrise facts
its shadows; no more polar provisions yet one more blank-eyed bird;
which of them will be led homeless like a higher place like being;
and being able to read and sing and laugh and move
and revisit, and not have to wonder about which small rivers
what to think about all of it, the seawalls of all of it.