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there is always one more death to paint us an ochre without axle aiming us like a sunflower down a path a harp once followed to still the scythe before losing love against itself
Copyright © 2018 by J. Michael Martinez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 26, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
A candle: presented in the water Shall the boundary: seen before the boundary: lift the law: To the end as may be: to the end as first the fountain of a lower key: the guaranty the virtue behind clarity which I make you: for this where neither dove nor crow has flown: As the now to ascertain, in the yet obscured: we speak juxtaposed: in the juxtaposed: without knowing what wills the ruins. This treaty shall be: this treaty shall be: the boundary see
The crisis crown. black thorns piercing. for of
inviolate flesh a replica of flesh. dioramas of bodies.
lashed & stretched. trunk opened for reverence. in
the thickening. death of the compound. noun we
are. bones bleached to bear. wings of dried lungs.
for Maria Jesus Martinez
You were laid among lilies,
the thin skin of
the leaf, the interval, oak
pews bowing beneath the weight.
If a stone were cast, your mouth
would be the well anchoring the water's
wish. And the word you would speak
in that incommensurable depth
could unlock space with a paper key.