At Once People at the End of Their Lives
come from common spaces to move around
the fountains and the flowers of Hyde Park.
They appear early, soundless, as if shod
in slippers of sleepwalkers. They embark
then pause, each breath the birth of a small god.
Thoughts enter them like planets run aground.
It is the pools of their eyes the time zones
cloud. They bring skies of rouge from Arkansas,
toy moons from Seoul. Statues open trench coats
and out shuffle the listless nudes. Hurrah
for the mumbled chant, the clearing of throats,
for the slower machinery of bones.
Watch the lavender of young orchids drain
from their cardigans. Trace the wet brushstrokes
of thinning blood. On some subsonic stair
the threadbare amens and the feeble jokes
ascend only to spiral in the air,
leaving no stain or the sound of a stain.
In bright rosebush labyrinths, they converge,
look up, blink, turn, and reverse the dazed prowl.
Unfinished: the cosmic wheel of their dance.
The starved grass crawls. Archways blacken. A surge
of sun shatters on patchwork waterfowl
and enters the drowsy eye like a lance.
