NOTHING
of the memorable crisis
or might
the event have been accomplished in view of all results null
human
WILL HAVE TAKEN PLACE
an ordinary elevation pours out absence
BUT THE PLACE
some splashing below of water as if to disperse the empty act
abruptly which otherwise
by its falsehood
would have founded
perdition
in these latitudes
of indeterminate
waves
in which all reality dissolves
EXCEPT
on high
PERHAPS
as far as place can fuse with the beyond
aside from the interest
marked out to it
in general
by a certain obliquity through a certain declivity
of fires
toward
what must be
the Septentrion as well as North
A CONSTELLATION
cold from forgetfulness and desuetude
not so much
that it doesn't number
on some vacant and superior surface
the successive shock
in the way of stars
of a total account in the making
keeping vigil
doubting
rolling
shining and meditating
before coming to a halt
at some terminus that sanctifies it
All Thought emits a Throw of the Dice
From Collected Poems (University of California Press, 1994) by Stéphane Mallarmé. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Strict and bound
as an analog watch,
Aristotelian narrative
calls for a probable
necessary sequence.
It is suicide season.
The calendar taunts
with year three’s death dance.
Dialysate swills
in my abdomen.
Long arrows of surgery
nudge under my ribs
trace my hipbones
garland my navel.
Along my lower back
divots of biopsy
freckle into sickles
when I bend over.
Driving over the city bridge
quirk or quark humming
I might be spared.
My grandmother loved
singing O What a Beautiful City
as she sorted her pills.
The anesthetic mask
shatters linear discipline:
Trotting the deep path by mosslight,
son is a dark-haired universe
in the crook of my right arm.
Five pound blood-hum
prayer and verse ripping
my skull pure off.
Time has me scalped
kissing the whorls of my brain
with frank red lips.
Rolling up from surgery
I look down to my wrist
where someone has clasped
my watch on loosely.
Copyright © 2019 by Laura Da'. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 14, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.