The Cross with Arms

We can't embrace what we can't
Escape. Why? A kohl-rimmed eye
Swivels toward me, as if
The eye were moving the head.
It is. What escapes us is
That we who are nothing are,
If not immortal, not dead.

All the talk, all the symbols,
All the magic that can say
Whatever it wants to say,
Whatever the universe
Denies, exists outside flesh,
Or through flesh, needing a host.
Poor flesh, the host that must go,

Suffers being made to know
What it is by what isn't,
The sign of eternal life
Crossed and clutched across the chest
Of the beast who breathed its last,
Transformed to sign entirely,
The hush transmuted. Sly eye.