1:
count to one it is as far into infinity
as you can go far as the hermit in his cave
—:0
Far as the wall whose edifice mirrors no one here
though a torch might float a shadow across a herd
drawn in blood minerals berries char unctuous
with resins of the myrtle it took a cave to pull these
horses out to lay a silhouette untraced unnamed
that came later if at all long after the kill the bison
the blood that binds reminds you two came first
the mother of one you were no one with your crayons
once and lay inside a sterile tent what did you know
of the fever that turns a smile yellow flesh a stranger
the sun behind the curtain was in you all along the sun
the crayon the slaughtered beast of dawn you I say
and a million figured horses thunder through the room
:1
Against the mind-wall, the mirror-mind
there the herd of shadows grazes still
those berries in the blood, memories, forms
a finger plowed into rock, mulberry, blood,
myrtle, each one gives a shadow a mind,
a shadow a mouth, unnames what it names,
bison, bird-headed staff, horse, headdress,
you have no mother, child, only memory
that fever in the cave you thought to cure
by swallowing strange ink and spitting it out,
your hand pressed against the wall, knowledge
is what that is called, among the slaughtered herds, you,
your hand’ s silhouette, blank beast, the other beasts make room
2:
If you want this room a little larger try a mirror
try a word touch the wall of a dressing room whose
faces graze the glass my first memory is a meadow
like this a beast in the window that has no other side
mind you I was no one and then my shadow
followed names, names they fell into the mouths
of those I loved bird, bison the talking horse inside
my black and white TV my mother taught me this
is this or close enough and words cured a loneliness
I did not know until I gave to it a name stranger
still I named a mirror and it turned into a wall I
named a beast and in that moment a herd arrived
you understand you as you the only ness of two
:2
Between gold and forgetting, a shadow
hides its face, shyness of the child
behind his mother’s dress, but memory
is the only mother he has, bloodless
but warm, welcoming you to become no one,
too Like a coin you carry in your mouth a name
this coin, this mother of exchange, what
new loneliness will it buy? A way to cross
where the river shallows. Stranger, cross
the river. Put away your face, become a mirror
Do you see the herd crossing the meadow?
Yes, that’s your mother. The herd that calls you you.
3:
In a dark time I make a sack out of my shadow
and crawl inside I curl into its balm its palm
its womb what is death I asked my mother
once then a silence that grew more silent still
and still I bleed pure light into a summer dress
its roses blushed transfused unpetalled down
the lineage of small encounters when I got hurt
my mother closed the wound with her lips she
plucked a coin from my eye placed it in a sack
for the ferry my shadow hers they made one
shadow once here at the entrance to the park
at dawn one black tower felled across the river
Kaw Kaw she said and then the word was gone
: 3
“Meet your shadow” my mother said, pointing
at me. My palm opened all by itself. Nothing
in me said “Open.” I had asked the questions
I knew to ask, and waited for silence to tell me
what to do. Death waited patiently. Light came
down the infinite stairs wearing a summer dress—
the beauty hurt me. I don’t know how else to say it.
“Meet your wound,” my mother said, pointing
at me. A coin fell out of my eye, why?
I wasn’t crying. The ferryman holds out his hand
in what is always the entrance to the present tense.
Dawn’s black river. “Meet your fallen tower,”
my mother said. The crow looked, called, flew away.
4:
The end of the story is a car abandoned by the Golden Gate
but once in the black pool that drowned the hours alive
there was no end there was a man who brooded over the keys
his baby grand afloat the water a whisper without caller or called
I want to say the wound goes deeper each end has another
let death wait we have other pressing matters ask the cry
that brought us into the world ask the tiny circle inside us all
where none of it matters but still you cry you play your love
ballad to an empty room rings of smoke blow over the sands
of the Presidio black bile runs in a keyboard’s hands surprise
remember the bus north of harbor how it stopped in the woods
to let the black bear cross and everyone looked at each other
you me crow bear powerless and still before the eyes of strangers
: 4
The poem creates the distance it must cross?
Yes, it does. Makes itself a bridge above the dark hours? Yes.
And you’re telling me that broken water rises? I am.
And some pleasure whispers on the surface? That’s right.
A wound works its way through me, mouth to anus? It’s true.
Matter teaches me to sing by singing in the emptiness. Yes, it does.
The world is a circle inside us all? So it’s been said.
The poem creates a circle around all it loves? Yes.
But leaves me out, smoke in an empty room? That’s right.
Black bile turns the soul melancholy? According to the books.
I don’t remember reading any books. You’ve read many.
I remember a black bear standing up by the side of the road. Yes.
And a bridge across which all grew stranger. Yes, stranger. That’s this bridge.
Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet, essayist, and translator. His work has been supported by the Monfort, Lannan, and Guggenheim Foundations. He teaches at Colorado State University, where he is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar.
Bruce Bond is the author of 35 books including, most recently, Patmos (Juniper Prize, UMass, 2021), Behemoth (New Criterion Prize, 2021), Liberation of Dissonance (Schaffner Award for Literature in Music, Schaffner, 2022), Choreomania (MadHat, 2023), and Invention of the Wilderness (LSU, 2023), plus two books of criticism Immanent Distance (UMich, 2015) and Plurality and the Poetics of Self (Palgrave, 2019). Other honors include the Crab Orchard Book Prize, the Elixir Press Poetry Award, the Tampa Review Book Prize, the Lynda Hull Award, the James Dickey Prize, the Meringoff Award, two TIL Best Book of Poetry awards, fellowships from the NEA and the Texas Institute for the Arts, and seven appearances in Best American Poetry. Presently he teaches part-time as a Regents Emeritus Professor of English at the University of North Texas and performs jazz and classical guitar in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
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