Fractured Aubade : The Gods of Dawn :: Eating Grapes:
—for Sascha
And then began our argument—politics,
or professions, or the existence of the soul—
on the back porch of my temporary home
of a city I had not begun to love. We started
with bottles of wine and a green bowl
of dark grapes. We ran through words
as if finally they’d come to mean something.
And when the wine was gone, we ripped
grapes from the clusters and tore through
their meanings. And when that was done
we fell silent and waited for something,
but we’d forgotten what. The Aztecs kept
the sun in the charnel house of night,
so that it would live again. Aurora slept in
her saffron bed. She was not the sun
but flew before him singing Sol is coming.
He is not dead. We heard horns rising,
the frost deglazing our panes. So many
suddenly realized. Neighbors
we never guessed had owned horns
such as those. Long bluesy things out their
windows. Lovers on the rooftops of tall buildings.
Falling together at bus stops. Instruments
of idiotic wonder. Instruments of upheaval
and forgivenesses. Things passionate
and obsolete. Perhaps it was not light
but dark matter, the god particle staining
the long valley, now receding like a bruise,
jaundiced by its difference, and heeled
by deeper tides, hollows filled by chin
and violin, the caprice swift and blousy, with
happiness or gratitude. We could not help
ourselves. We put the bottles to our lips
and blew. The argument far behind. Our
voices now some fog over a field. Adagio,
let’s agree, meant to play slowly, skillfully,
as if sound were made of light. 