print previewback EDWARD MAYES
All Must
We hadn’t forgotten that all the tables
In the room had been recently bussed,
Nor that just before the marrow
From the ossibuchi slid onto tips
Of bread, and dust now’s on the candle wax
That had given us its light, all the better
To see the cancer their doctors said
They had, them, over there, next to
The other thems, and could we trace
The trade routes of these words,
A spontaneous flame in an unspontaneous
Desert, or the arrow we would like to
Follow if we could ever find it, perhaps
There, the tip hidden in someone’s head,
Traveling down someone else’s spine,
Hitting someone else’s heel, might that
Yarrow would be just one of the cure-alls,
Something to give belief to releafing
After seeing the paths covered with
Leaves, how we can try to manage to
Be anti-brief, asbestic, lungs full of thunder,
And the thunder full of us, when even
The metaphysical seems metastatic, the change
That clangs, the ex-votos lining the church walls
In Real de Catorce that day, us, through
The Ogarrio Tunnel into somewhere
Where air thrilled us, and where we would
Never go again, unless we were beckoned
By something invisible, or unless we were
All invited together, whether the tables were
Set again or not, or even whether we had all
Just finished, chairs pushed back, as was time.
All Must
The Lost Art of Piping Down
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