from “Material Witness”

Once it had been written ‘Sacred means saturated with being,’ you spoke
          that zone into obliteration, lying out of an abundance of caution in
          untimely grasses.
You could have had visions, you could have had anything you wanted by
          methods of indiscretion increasingly purveyed in those final years
          in which lyric was put before all, lyric tea, lyric grant, lyric mass
          shooter, give yourself up
except you couldn’t, not to the accountants, not to the heightened
          scrutability of the land, heights you’d fall off of.
Then an opaque zone. Or darkness bled. Impossible to extract confessions
          when they’re spilling already everywhere.
Then bloodless darkness. Dissent.
Trust nothing. The sun is president.




From Material Witness (Nightboat Books, 2024). Reprinted with the permission of the publisher and poet.