CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
Behind my hand is another hand.
Behind my head, another head.
Iron filings fill the hand,
sway with the movements of the head.
A mouth made of aluminum moths
moves in the mouth of the head.
Blue ink flows from the veins in the hand,
tooth-wounds open in the ears of the head.
Blight hands move inside the hand,
shaded from the light behind the head.
Behind my hand lamplit babies run through the forest,
lightning all around above and behind them.
The civil war rages over their sky-brightened eyes
but they are fleshy and pink, pink and fleshy and they
will win the wind from the wind.
Engendered of light, treacle-headed, bellied.
Leaf rustle. Morning light. Descent.
The forests stay dark.
The crucifix lodged in my temple, the defection
flowing sub-sight, sub-vestments, sub-speech
will never topple my empire of twine,
trace the world on waxed paper,
float torn silvery wings from a queen ant
into the fertile crescent,
over my palm,
to where my forest photos grow untended.
Behind my head my daughter sleeps in a lute-string hut.
Her mother dead from the purge,
I fly in the branches of imaginary trees.
An elegiac lake laps against our boathouse.
I'm flying in the gum from the superwhite body.
In the lake, in the sky. In my daughter:
the other white body,
supine under circle wound string.
Behind my hand the white body bats its blue-veined wings,
prunes the sea-trees under a blue sky.
Between the green sea and the blue sky
fishermen float Viennese fish songs.
The white body pulls the branches to it
and sings of marlin fish swallowing stars midleap.
Behind my head breath fills the air,
steel bowls fall onto the snow plic
ploc a child no bigger than small change
calls from her window j'ai faim.
The neighbors wheel wine and bread to her
on a scalped red scarf pulley
above their green grass communal square.
Behind my head, a hand.
Behind my hand, the bluet sky.
Behind my head, another head.
Iron filings fill the hand,
sway with the movements of the head.
A mouth made of aluminum moths
moves in the mouth of the head.
Blue ink flows from the veins in the hand,
tooth-wounds open in the ears of the head.
Blight hands move inside the hand,
shaded from the light behind the head.
Behind my hand lamplit babies run through the forest,
lightning all around above and behind them.
The civil war rages over their sky-brightened eyes
but they are fleshy and pink, pink and fleshy and they
will win the wind from the wind.
Engendered of light, treacle-headed, bellied.
Leaf rustle. Morning light. Descent.
The forests stay dark.
The crucifix lodged in my temple, the defection
flowing sub-sight, sub-vestments, sub-speech
will never topple my empire of twine,
trace the world on waxed paper,
float torn silvery wings from a queen ant
into the fertile crescent,
over my palm,
to where my forest photos grow untended.
Behind my head my daughter sleeps in a lute-string hut.
Her mother dead from the purge,
I fly in the branches of imaginary trees.
An elegiac lake laps against our boathouse.
I'm flying in the gum from the superwhite body.
In the lake, in the sky. In my daughter:
the other white body,
supine under circle wound string.
Behind my hand the white body bats its blue-veined wings,
prunes the sea-trees under a blue sky.
Between the green sea and the blue sky
fishermen float Viennese fish songs.
The white body pulls the branches to it
and sings of marlin fish swallowing stars midleap.
Behind my head breath fills the air,
steel bowls fall onto the snow plic
ploc a child no bigger than small change
calls from her window j'ai faim.
The neighbors wheel wine and bread to her
on a scalped red scarf pulley
above their green grass communal square.
Behind my head, a hand.
Behind my hand, the bluet sky.