Above Thy Deep and Dreamless Sleep

We pass through the tail of this comet,
Always missing the comet itself,
Always counting the silent squibs
We get all worked up about, bright pins

Expressing the fine scrollwork of right now
As a thin quickness. Blink, we say,
And you'll miss it, although we miss few
Due to inopportune nictation or tears

And most just sitting inside, tightly focused
On human things. Some such years
We miss the showers altogether,
Swanning through the Southern Hemisphere

Through pearl and marble clouded nights,
Palmy, muggy afternoons annoyed by flies,
And the peculiar phenomena of a cold culture
Flourishing in a balmy, tattooed trompe l'oeil.

Some years, we stay far out in the desert
And warm ourselves by the frequency
Of the rotating cold calligraphy, the signatures
Of inevitable coincidence, warm omens

Of the meaning of everything
Inscribed on the backs of our eyes,
On the backs of thoughts about the inexhaustible
Beauty of the infinitely inhuman night,

The kindness of inhuman divinity,
Each quick careful stroke
At the edge of our rituals
Kissing us so well we could cry.