The Elephants

LAST SCENE

after Tacita Dean’s ‘Ship of Death,’ The Russian Ending series

Bye bye  :  coin on tongue

body across a body across a life sentence

each lap noted in bone chalk   :

Two bodies do not meet at sunset

they move in unison toward the same end

you believe you do not fear

many rivers converge in dark concern   :

He was waiting for you in fog

he operated the vessel

he’ll leave you to shore up  :

you harbored color to measure death’s aesthetic

only a paddle’s sound across a body was rational.

---

“The prettiest thing I ever saw”

is coated in figure eights
will cramp your style
to strike a pose:
dermaruddynudecontortrubicund


has internal and external offices
wears a proper coat
to strike a pose:
fulfillpleasedimplesrippleswant


is a depressed aperture
stretching its lilac vessel
to strike a pose:
buckrougerawundrapeddisrobed


has longitudinal muscles
oscillates an ache into feeling
then puckers up
to strike a pose:
beigeflushbegexposedmoist

*A.C. Bradley recounts his version of a S. T. Coleridge story: “Then, to Coleridge’s high satisfaction, the gentleman exclaimed, ‘It is sublime’ to which the lady responded, ‘Yes it is the prettiest thing I ever saw.’”

---

Book of Tissues

The elements were ripe
once I projected the emotion I saw no need for
tissue-thin pages nudged in a pocket book
If elements are ripe
the eye erases what hurts or haunts it
a projector tears away or is torn away
an idea’s page is felt.

For any exposure
the feeling must be ripe
if Burke said pleasure is pain avoided
I see offspring on both ends
clenched, undulating
reliefs
buried in handheld mirrors
hanging upside down
and low off the tree.

To write it sounds physical
like rip streak blood
tear gurgle and wrench

Take birth and death’s
images superimposed
I suppose
a baby’s eye opener
and an elder’s last look
face
the greatest trepidation

Tissues slough off, brown
to flatten
vapor that takes
a lifetime.