some minx’s token
laid on our tongues, some civilization’s content so absolute
we can row a canoe seaward into its azured vault vocabulary,
we can salt backwards in minutes to
Name him,
that what he gave us was more knowledge
overwhelmed by seeing us,
a violent sorrow
and this sorrow that I have by right
is yours, man and woman both, which
Empowered him out of nature
in some loneliness-allure crossing the face twice,
like the cuttlefish turning over its colors,
blame due of blame,
that first lights on him, then us, following in
our bodies’ grammar, profound language found
by our carnal stings or unbitten lusts
word over word,
the ugly part of beauty
moved from the gut to resume the shape
of Cordelia in his arms,
unfinished storm-flower where the darkness folded up
and you asked yourself Will it eat me?
like the feeding earth- worm of conscience, swallowed by its
own red sound,
seas incarnadine,
Faith, half asleep in your arms, that
What you know, you know,
inward breaks
even before it is named, even before it benchmarks who you are.
>>>>
by Elena Karina Byrne
Antioch Review, Winter 2008
forthcoming in Burnt Violin, Tupelo Press 2011