Bellows

What I desire
are the knowledges
of deep places.

The fast notes
of the brass flute,
cold and dry.

Like tusk and moon,
granite and stem,
pollen and polyp.

Make a hard thing
against my skin.
If I will not let things go

Then show me
they are not enough
– what I cling to –

to take me
where I seek
to go.

Show me
I must change
and fight with beauty,

As beauty,
to become something
serving beauty.
Show me.
Make me know in places
pain can crawl
A dance
I can only learn
the way birds learn to fly.

Let me feel wind
down the ribs of feathers
that means tooth and oblivion

In the absence
of willful and committed
participation.

Make a hard thing
against me,
like night on pine

Like hoof on dew-grass
like wave on basalt.
The shiver

Of my body
against you, pressing,
is enough

to make long,
curving beaches
of the knuckles

and the hatreds
of my old
resolves.