for Wark and Wittgenstein
I have come to recognize my own long lost bodies hidden away from reach
especially my feminine selves, wholly incomplete and abandoned
but strong resilient
and almost ready to play all the lost levels of public parity and pleasure
always unsure though
forever mourning the what ifs? and
but whats?
the fear of contempt and
aversion, abomination, abhorrence, animosity, antipathy, animus,
animal animus, antinomies of the well-reasoned life short-
circuited by beastly suffering
so common
so common
that we can’t even imagine enough A-words to record the feelings of
antagonism and avarice
that work handin handto break these carcasses apart,
forcing them into the great categorical body cast despite love
for my various voices and bodies and haircuts and
attractions and desires
climbing ivy-like up the tower
of my being-in-with-flux
pink, purple, blue,
and that’s just a start,
bright-colored saltires alternating blues and blacks
with white hearts when pie day is every day,
new moves in old language games
in which not all of the pieces are mine, especially family pieces,
scry as I might, some of them would beat me unconscious and leave me bleeding
in the mildew night
given the right circumstances
or even worse: the slow burn of
disapproval and disdain—reminding me that beasts like sinners
are no different than saints—
and disgust with demur, that old refrain offered in the name of love about which scholars write
and some of us endure,
a love without love,
this alliterative life—
within me ancient souls and drives and ways of being-with tumble around the brandy
snifter of my changeful identity, vertiginously swirling,
a little more clarity than yesterday, a touch more fear, too, but also a hope
that more visible moves might end or pause this long game for my daughter’s generation.
