1. The Speech
Crowd gathered
to remember, collect
an unsurprising speech
A leader read from notes
Stopped. Looked down.
Folded the page.
Unfolded. Began again. Refolded.
Surprised, fell silent for moments
during which some heard
sound of fingers
like an industrial hum
working the crease
or sensed stealth silence
like smoke through caulked crevices
spoken by speechless speaker
plumes more recalled than seen,
bringer of throat-sting,
hot air rinse, death wash
pumice of concrete in descent
which he had not thought to invoke
until he bathed them with silence.
2. At the Fold
It was as if to be convinced
of fate's seal
as if tracing the outer edge of urns
was to touch a warm wrist
as if the page had revised & rejected
shape of fingers that held it
like lids folded in estrangement
from eyes wishing to unsee.
It was as if comfort could be found
in analyst reports of hindsight & blame
as if the unthreatened dead
had first filed & folded their forboding
As if mourner hands
could mimic prayer
in buildings that could fold
suddenly into providemtial dust.
It was as if folders had been piloted
from glassless windows
as if locked in warehouses of folded sheets
shipped from emptied bedrooms
as if thick rich napkins folded themselves
in templates of restless hands
death oozing in the fold
between the read & the unread.
It was as if not only the moaned & the shrieked
but the insensate were drawn into the cloud
as if instructions folded in instrument cases
grasped the physics of nihilist nirvana
as if holding handkerchiefs about to be folded
over unautopsied faces
& cranes that were weeping willows folded
down, down to widowed ground.
It was as if newspapers thus folded
carried all the doomed should know that day
as if that same paper would burn first
folding over what could no more be held
as if speech act & speech
had become dissociated at flammable brainstem
delivering phrases folded under the weight
of remains of remains of remains.
3. Pause of the Mime
The size at which loss
becomes a page
too heavy to be opened
& all speech folded inward
we lie without hunger
beneath the apple blossoms
feed upon survivorship
wait for the fruit
the branches sag & fold
with weight of the unspoken
told in the fold
in the mime of grief
as if upon entering
the tunnel without end
they had heard the dead
whispering their ordinary longings
which must lose its way
in the labyrinths of loss
in order to be heard
in the fold between the living & the living
chalk-dust, elegy, poetry
when the screen goes black
chairs folded
backs to the stage
but a short pause,
as the unconsoled, bent & resolute,
have already resumed their
perfectible speeches to the unconsolable.
October 2011