That Said Read Online Free Page B

hurricane
cut the banana plantation down.
The way an image
inverts inside the eye,
bunches of bananas jutted
like chandeliers out of the ground.
The palace leveled by jungle,
accessible only by air.
Violence civilized
by machete, jeep, and climate.
    Â 
    4. Blackout
    Â 
Only the knife knows
what is in the heart
of the yam.
    Â 
A blazing eye
will not set the house
on fire.
    Â 
All electric power out;
I swung the shutters
open and leaned
    Â 
over the fretwork
of the balcony,
as the city
    Â 
sank—tier
by brilliant tier—
into the harbor.
    Â 
Stumbling toward
the door, my fingers
skimmed the Braille plaster
    Â 
of the walls, until
my bare feet
felt the landing,
    Â 
the wooden boxes
of the steps.
In my hand,
    Â 
my butane lighter
slid a small circle
down the stairs,
    Â 
and the stairs
became all motion,
surfaces angled
    Â 
off to surfaces
I couldn’t see;
and I, suddenly
    Â 
brave among shadows,
yelled out
to scare the maid,
    Â 
“Esprit! Esprit!”
thinking it meant
ghost...
    Â 
Save yourself
from drowning.
The day a leaf
    Â 
falls in the water
may not be
the day it sinks.
    Â 
    Â 
    5. North: The Fish
    Â 
The blind and depigmented fish
Amblyopsis spelaea
inhabits streams in the dark zones of caves in southern Indiana.
    Â 
In the laboratory, the scientist
explains what I am about to see.
How, in Huddelson’s cornfield,
the farmer discovered the cave
when his pig fell in the hole.
Lowered by rope into a twilit chamber,
the scientist landed on a dirt mound
studded with lost things: a hoe, twisted
vertebrae, keys, shreds of tinfoil—
whatever shiny caught the pack rats’ eyes.
    Â 
The scientist shuts off the lights
and guides me one step up, unbolting
a room of cold and dark so dense
its clarity shocks instantly—
as in the nightmare dive, the dreamer
wakes midair over water.
In the frozen halo of my iris,
the dark target widens.
    Â 
Total darkness isn’t black,
but is a deep and pit-like gray
that draws the eye into its depths.
    Â 
The scientist passes me the flashlight
like a cigarette. Each fish
looks like a finger’s length of quartz.
The colorless scales have the sheen
of silk, silver mesh around the gills.
The fins, thin undulant fans, quiver.
Cut one open, its blood runs clear as water.
Light shines straight through its head.
I focus on where the eyes should be.
Skin stretches unbroken over the skull,
flat and smooth as a thumbnail.
Eye sockets, shadows trapped in ice.
    Â 
I dip my hand into the water
to touch the glacial head.
The fish darts away!
It stuns like current as I jerk back,
my hand rigid at my side.
My eye burns beyond its chemicals.
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    6.
    Â 
Across the garden
two birds call
into my sleep.
    Â 
What was it
I was dreaming?
—a mermaid turning
    Â 
in your net
you wished to make
human by an act
    Â 
of love? Landlocked,
I was only
divided by desire.
    Â 
In sleep,
when each has lost
the enterprise of
    Â 
self, and the heart
no longer steers
within the body’s
    Â 
limits, then
sun, moon, and skull
are equal in the mind.
    Â 
On a seabed, or bed
of linen, the same
skeletal thrash
    Â 
in darkness,
choking on water
as on air.
    Â 
Desire’s
just the interval
in birdsong.
    Â 
The two call
across the distance
of the bed.
    Â 
The voices call
despite weather
or temperament.
    Â 
I let you go.
But see how my desire
drew you in.
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    7. Trompe l’oeil
    Â 
Tonight, the grid
of trolley wires
that canopies the street
    Â 
sags under
the sky’s dark weight.
I glanced out
    Â 
the window the moment
the trolley passed—
spattering an enormous
    Â 
blue-white spark
that filled my bedroom
like pistol shot—
    Â 
branding trees,
the house opposite,
where still cars
    Â 
bloomed in points
of light. Surveying
the injury, I focused
    Â 
on the dark.
Trees uprooted, cars
parked in air.
    Â 
Everywhere I looked
their outlines
shocked the dark
    Â 
and floated exactly
as they