zafusy

On each statement the weight of
language rusting in books,
under a light. I shall come down bearing
the prints of a clay city on
friable earth, a bed among
rippling structures, where
an outlet pipe snuffles
particles of us shifted some dust
inside this skin to pick from
the floor a broken syntax
and set it on edge as one does when
we know it is beyond repair, not the
language but the idea that there
was something suspended that
might fit the silence. Inside
the marble feels only stone
and reoccurs in night’s catalogue.
The children sleep on the rafts we
made for them out of words
as stars realize their shapes.
O god of finding the word
for the elusive picture screened
in nameless cinemas, each one
the size of a cell: languages
will speak to you in your sleep.

Giles Goodland

View all poems by Giles Goodland