Augury - Eric Pankey

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and fused to flesh,

      The fold at the forward

      Corner of the fawn’s eye

      Giving in, it looks like,

      To sleep, yet the eye

      Is wide open,

      Attentive, not resigned,

      But fraught, fearful,

      Consumed by seeing.

      ORACLE BONES

      Beyond the word-house and sky-hung mountain,

      Rain-frayed light burnishes the dusk-edged hour.

      One can read the tossed owl bones as empty-handed,

      Meaning not yet or try again, can cast forth into a future,

      A dust-narrative of loose snow.

      Each is the same burden:

      Not yet and try again—the lintel flame-licked,

      Sleep banked in cold ash, a room furnished with smoke.

      Each word on the page burned illegible.

      But no matter, you know the story by heart.

      SPECULATION ON A STAR-NURSERY

      An empty, oarless

      Boat drifts

      Above vast depths,

      Above silt

      Stirred up like dust

      In a star-nursery,

      Where gravity

      Long ago

      Released light,

      Light which has not

      Reached an eye

      That might behold it.

      What is it

      One sees in the place

      Where the light

      Will be,

      But is not,

      But is not yet?

      EPIPHENOMENON

      The lizard,

      born it seems of fissures,

      Skims and quivers up the rock-wall,

      Insinuates itself between chipped mortar

      And a holdfast of lemon thyme

      And is gone, resorbed again into stone.

      Another nameless spectacle,

      the man thinks,

      As he opens the door and a new day enters with him.

      He moves from room to room,

      Pulls the black crepe from the mirrors,

      Finds himself reflected there in each.

      SPECULATION ON THE HISTORY OF DRAWING

      The tool,

      A burnt stick,

      Extends the body

      In this space

      And through time.

      The mark renders,

      We assume,

      Asserts meaning

      We might yet read:

      An abstracted serpent,

      The moon’s trajectory,

      A caribou’s spine.

      As far

      As an arm can reach:

      A drag of charcoal

      High on the cave wall,

      Still measured by,

      Scaled to, a human body.

      ELEGY FOR CY TWOMBLY

      The water runs on—

      A cold cursive stream—

      An arcane meandering script—

      An erasure of glare, once shadow-smudged, now

      rain-stippled—

      Rivulets and tributaries—

      Cramped, contorted marginalia—

      Baroque pageantries of scribbles—

      Calligraphic gestures kept in a daybook as light dims, limns

      into night—

      THE FIG

      Inside the fig there is a serpent

      Beguiled by a beguiling serpent.

      There is a breached levee, falling

      And fallen stars, a grappling hook,

      Icebergs in mist, megaliths,

      A cache of Indian head nickels,

      The invisible caught in the act

      Of adhering to light, a matchbook

      That warns close cover before striking . . .

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