May 5th, 2015

Angeline PJ Harvey, 1998

How It Feels to Be A Thing

 
The hoods of your eyes cloaked me and I could not see 
the silk rope as it came to me like a lost thing, unremembered

having already bound my hands, you poured the tea and began
a dialogue between yourself and your hand 

Shall we you said to your hand hurt her? We shall said your hand
and then you let it hover over my face, but never let it fall.

And I waited for a long time for your hand to hit
and while I waited the night grew darker and then

I remember only disappearing and watching a cpoy of myself,
far below, sit and wait as I drifted up like smoke  

to the empty bowl of night that had collected all the 
ones before me, and we spirits, swimming about, 

looked down on the burning buildings and the tulip 
trees blooming and thought about the space between 

things and how the space between your hand and our
faces was full of a thousand wars and a million words

as swollen as seed pods.