You Look Like a Ghost
       

The Romantic poets would be absorbed
by their progeny and what determined
their temperate offering of rabbit—
plastic hares in heaps. The relational
way the Metaphysical poets tie
feminine radiance to drunkenness
is impractical—that is until they
die in a new set of clothes, questioning
THE REAL while wearing golden medallions.
We're still waiting outside of the tower
near a bonfire, as martyrs often do.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, we
leave and find some maternal causation.
Who else provides such a sanctuary?
Sublime images reiterate what
was understood, before the second set
of clothes were purchased—as exquisitely
as they were made. Did you get your rabbit?
Did you stare into a poem that could
not reflect? Why is your face discolored?
You're looking more and more like an insect—
some otherworldly thing, uncannily
devised like a concealed tattoo or
a blooming rose inside your chest. A crime
searches for spotless marks—a guardian,
the same—an inert existence, something
else entirely. Each hate manifests
a wise founder, living on air alone—
the new worshipful horde. And yet, you don't
appreciate the event of naming—
that a father could establish a name—
that a father determines THE BOOK OF
INTERROGATIONS. This is permanence,
exiting on a pallid horse—as your
unintentional witlessness pervades.
I am the same way when I encounter
anything oceanic, any dance
wherein an ancient tango passes me.
Whether we like it or not, the desire
to desert is already fixed in us.
There's only one absolute history.

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Copyright © 2018 LM Rivera All rights reserved
from The Drunkards
Omnidawn
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission