On my uncle, on his sun-blistered
shoulders and arms, moist and
exhausted, I performed my little
innocent operations. We weren’t
supposed to know about them back
then, my sister and I, and now they
are everywhere, comical in their
marches and reminiscences; I almost
feel sorry for them, their iron jewelry,
their bald heads, with their aversion to
hybrids and a predilection for accounting.
Why not imagine that light just as
the poet did, after death, after all
things material, like enamel or
porcelain or even more neutral:
not even sugar is untouched in this
regard, with the bones used to bleach
its appearance. But a longer journey,
through root and vessel, shoe leather
and nail, and into the filing cabinet
where the records cook and bubble
over into the bright eternal.