Narcissus, Part I
By Michael Turle
I see him at the mirror making circles on his skin,
tracing the divine geometry stitched finely up his back.
I see him smile, all bliss and bluster,
a messy messiah with a haircut to match
and eyes with a warmth like home.
.
I see him dancing down the hall — O ballerino of absurd!
and throw on silks and corduroy
to sing to Julia —
Half of what I say is meaningless —
.
I see him smoking dovetail joints
and strumming summer through the trees
and sea
and sky
and I
see him —
pulling ichor ink through stolen straws
and learning to breathe their ghosts —
But I say it just to reach you —
.
I see him half asleep in words that will not follow into morning,
sluiced in softshorn exigence for a life unsure to be.
I see him, sedated solitude, scripting and salving towards some sanctity,
a virgin catholic Ginsberg whose Howls no angels hear.
.
I see him with arms around his back and lips pressed softly to his neck,
and skin on his and seashell eyes and windy smiles and eternity to explore—
.
until awaking,
suddenly sober,
in the sweat of 4 AM
with one less body in the bed and oblivion besides —
.
and I see him rise for water,
drag his shambling husk aloft,
and somehow,
semifluent still in the tongue of seraphim,
sing aubades of emptiness
to the moody, shivering morn.
.
I see him hunched over double in his half remembered prayer
for absolution in absolute from the sin of being alone.
I see him looking through glass onions,
making auspice of their shatter
for signs that she might still exist in a way that hands can know.
.
I see him look at me
and shiver —
I don’t want to give up yet.