The Melancholy of a Heavy Earth

From so far — a drowned world walks toward me,
I lie upon it, feeling time leak through its veins.
An unspeakable sea of monstrous intimacies
laps at the mind, at the body,
its current weightless, chill —
for in memory, nothing is distinct
from what we have seen or merely dreamed.
 
I dream of existing in untainted delight,
without certainty, without the piety of science.
I interrogate the blurred petals of this half-song,
suspecting thirst itself is an axis
around which lips, imagined, revolve.
 
The sky — oh, the sky will be a dark chamber,
and in the pupil that stares at its own knowing-line of light
the hand closes upon itself,
cradling all that can be taken
into the open chest’s lament.
 
And when they seal the coffin,
or when a letter,
like a sword of sunlight,
rises to blind —
then slowly the dark will unpeel,
like the wounded blemish of a moon,
like a veil that hides nothing
and guards no door.
 
I wonder if the mournful song of this heavy earth
touches him —
how much hope floats green in its veins,
how gently the winds caress with their soft palms.
Have you known his sensation?
I knew — and suddenly I lost all.
 
Days pass down this road,
annoyance brimming to the lip of the mind.
The body — lust’s cathedral — and the mind — fragile glass —
search in vain for their own.
 
Shall the path end in some shadow? Or has it ended already?
How many days more will you watch,
silent, the game of fate,
while the heavy earth
sings its melancholy song?