burning the edges in
photographs of nebulae, of burn-out humans
starred and scarred faces in the sky.
It doesn't matter that I don't know the answer to the question that is being asked:
there will be answers to come, but we haven't even conceived
of something anywhere like close to
whatever those will be. What answers do you need from me?
In Old English, a second ago was a second minute ago
and in Latin there is not a word for yes or no
and did you know that the hippocampus is a Latin word for seahorse?
The seahorse in your brain where memories make you,
photograph by photograph, it keeps your mind together.
Still, you're asking. What happened to that face?
He has stars in his eyes, I thought, while Will held a flame
to a discarded photograph and the paper seared gold
and the people pictured there became galaxies
and stars of jewel-bed colors in night and cities and in trees.
I don't understand myself right now. My poems are not good. My writing is not happening
but my mind somehow overtook all else and my synapses might burn-out too
like some William voodoo