Senhal’s complaint

Soul, don’t complain, says Senhal,

who means by “soul” a thing like “future,”

possesses without knowing it

not soul, but future,

is little present, Senhal, & less past

when this she shares,

not always willing all,

the pale pearl earth with you

& shelters in her heart

a stunted lemon tree, inviolate,

& shielded by a sour ring of fire,

the kind that keeps a Valkyrie asleep.

Always born too early,

Senhal lights these candles

not to read by, but to watch

the diamonds flower & die

within their hot, blue nuclei,

which seem to flicker

with secret intent

that fails, all told,

to comprehend her.

& arguably, this darkness is, for her, the best

of them, refusal of the soul

she never recognizes

as refusal of the future

which she is

instead of all her otherwises — 

& might she have been — 

conscience-calmed — perhaps — 

or else a bird

of the earthly paradise

in which one barely needs to eat

or else subsists on manna

or some other fragrant zero

denuded of the tang of death

& the numb green shade,

a starry zone,

orthogonal with luminous errata,

in which a lake of ultramarine

has been used with never parsimony

in all the places where blue is required

to smudge a Thule out

of sand & sea & air,

a seeming there

that seeming wants

to hold her in its arms,

in which one could be one

& yes the ripe quicksilver

that the artificer poured

into the throats of statues

to give them voice

had never brought the air alive

with hoarsest cries & muffled pleas

(lutes, lobsters, seas of milk, and ships of amber

did they cry?)

as if nor it nor any thing mercurial had ever learned

to savor love & poison in one mouth?