Instrument

i have wanted to be a sieve

i have wanted to be an anechoic chamber

and reflect back to you     no sound

but for the quiet rush and thrum

of your own nervous blood

 

i have wanted to be instrument

and not just body     to be felt

the cleavage of the world through

but instead to splay the invisible

light waned out through     skin

 

          skin and rushes
          a bird-wing desire
          alight and under       {fire}

 

                                               {i} walked out into the burning-est
                                               woken / of time / am i / 
acting-vist
                                               enough / as light / in the interim
                                               / inner of darkness / now entering
                                               / the 
machine / in knowing of
                                               cloak & insidious /
                                               of wonder / & plunder /
                                               not to seek / satisfaction
 in peaks
                                               / & difficult in climb
                                               / & / into surrender's don’ts //

 

                                               {i} walked out
                                               into the brilliant
                                               wokenest of
                                               time & everything
                                               was trite-ist

Copyright © 2019 by Dao Strom. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 7, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.