13 WAYS (more or less)
After Wallace Stevens
The poet seeks the desert
for its rare oasis;
seeks the company
of the bushman
for his water knowledge.
The poet’s soul
is an old, slow camera.
The liver
is a liver-shaped organ;
The poet’s song
is a song-shaped essence.
The planet implodes at zero hour;
The poet’s eyes close — open.
The poet, like the bishop,
Is a courier of insight
Always moving obliquely
On the road to Damascus,
the wrathful believer
meets the poet
and becomes him.
Reaching into the wretch’s gut,
the poet pulls out rubies.
A saint and a scoundrel are one;
a saint and a scoundrel and a poet
are one.
In the bog’s brown dark,
the poet sees a thousand colors.
The poet is a company of actors
all in one costume.
The poet, like truth,
is a vagrant entity —
a mutable subject.
The sage rides by,
whipping his camel;
the poet savors the attendant stinks.
The poet approaches me
with my face in his eyes.
The guests are assembled
in the library;
only the poet
knows who done it.
Looking up
at a vacant sky,
the poet points to the bird —
marvels at its subtle markings.
All other options exhausted,
the poet releases
a shrapnel of songbirds.
—Maggie Morley