a perfect little world that doesn’t really need you
(Laurie Anderson)
I
At evening as air darkens
past shades of indigo into night
watch a bird fly left to right across
a field of vision
lighthouse was a word a kind
of comfort to the sailor but a house
made of light has no word
the full field of vision is a house
within which I live there is more
beyond the edges I do not see
lightness itself I do not see
nor weather nor largeness nor am I
standing in a boat to watch the wake
as signature nor comment on crossing
nor is there reason to move across water
with pennants on shore one-winged birds
fly nowhere ashore not silent nor
the sound of one lip the winged
penitent angels do not speak the written
is not the spoken for nor is a pen in motion
like the unflapping wing of the angel silent
as afternoon approaches and morning
collapses past the past
silent as one hand collapsing
the botany angel is careful to touch
nothing nor breathe heavily
I walk toward my own shadow
to protect my face from sun
the same sun now shining through
the alert ears of the rabbit at sunrise
who appears to know something
beyond what vision offers
who knows to not move until danger
is touchingly close.
II
It is as if the rabbit lives
in a glass house of light like television
whose ears collect
rays of radio invisible lightlike.
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