Arpeggio with Bell and Lantern
All my disobedient bodies cannot refuse
the allure of light bent by water or glass
as if I were a lanterned thing, more guest
then occupant: a small blaze of self at wick’s end
as the iris in the field of the body is also the night’s eye
fraught with half-shapes and phantoms
finding its way in the thinnest light
among the small and large catastrophes of fire --
the house, the car, the missing brother
the one who centered his life around the rung bell
gone among rivered and branching places
as will we or so say
those who know the weight of such matter:
all that can be measured in paper and ink
sent aloft by the unseasonal appetites of fire.