Poem "Abacus"

Abacus

When

you

took

me,

you took the sheerest

space

of all, the one reserved

for nestling hesitations prior to flight

Now

wind blows

through — rattling my bones like abacus

Instead of the sum-sounds of this place — calculations

irritating and incessant as a flock of dying

iridescent flies — I long

for theatres of divinity where colored light

and flightful words could incubate the crystals

of my cold, bright, analyzing mind

Left lampshade-thin, I grew enunciated,

strove to love-by-number while

your outraged phantom

stared, as editorial as ever,

sear-eyed still, as in the dark

room where you doused

the bared, small, avian girl

in silver moonlight—

graven made

So how

should I reflect

me now — the skin case rumpling,

bones like tusks flung pell-mell

when the poacher fled,

the head a clack of mystery — ? Is someone

there

who would configure

what I might have gone on being

had you failed to make

me count,

to summon me?

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