Unto the Ground

Our hands twist, fingers entwine,
play make believe with a pen:

I am not a thought but a child
I forget every former thing
I am not a thought but a man,

who increases knowledge, who increases sorrow,
is twisted, dirty, broken, alive with fire and a scroll gently chewed on

I need a little light
I am not a thought in the mind of God
I am clay inside the hearth

What will become of me? Of my body—elbows, toes, lungs—
every step, every dance through scraps of poems which
never satisfy death, nor hell, nor the eyes of man
—stupid, careless, wild?

The eyes of man see blank spaces with room to write.
Dirt beneath my finger, molded in clay
all we do in half measures the coals burn clean.

But this body was written in love
slanted, pivoted to earth,
a knot tied together at the limbs
—flawed, gorgeous in a way.
I am human, just human, which is a lot

But Oh! That I had wings like a dove.