Brad Richard



Fort-Da


Gone and there our bodies, near and not to hold. Here: forest to chromium, stone to umber, violet clouds the far water. Here: each of our bodies as one forgets, posed in difference. You derive from this, a gaze, a farther delayed, incomplete all ways. Eternal arrival where we never, our pleasure made gone, there, in our forest’s grayed down greens, in our stream’s graded hues, in use, in you. I never seen, tell us naked, tell us heat or him, tell us touch, tell death your story, our bodies, there, gone, each a child’s toy, a reel he tosses past sight, o-o-o-o, pulls back by its thread. Thread we play you hold. Here:





Envoi


Slowly the rain
	thinks	 :
	     jasmine
	     thistle
	     withered fingers   
	     of the poinsettia
		     budding—

Light empties	
	from the sky’s face    :    shadows
	    heap on shadows, leaves
	       fallen from a psalter

The jaws of the hour
       relax

    You beckon

I enter	      am broken

       spoken