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.