appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2017

James Cagney
0:00
 
 

(Love is easier the headless way)
             -after René Magritte’s Duo/ The Lovers, 1928

Love is easier the headless way
What good is desire in a world
where there is only a thriving darkness

Your mouth is a gate
opening to any place away from here—
the crumbling mansion of my nothing heart

With this form-fitting cloth
               I do wed

Let us spill into one another
like waves of agitated milk
placing our thoughts elsewhere
     onto unavailable others
while our useless arms
disappear into what frames us:

bench/ bed/ brothel of the mind

Everywhere we turn
winter remains unfinished

You don’t trust your mouth
and I don’t trust anyone
who says they love me

What are we willing to emotionally
barter for when all we have
is the simple meat of ourselves

And who can say what color the world
was before the earth’s canvas
began flowering paint
               I have this recurring dream
where we live nameless as mushrooms
in their shadow of primeval birds—
birds who eluded anthropologists
and didn’t want the press

But who agreed to soar forever
without landing
and seed the earth with minerals of light

I awake usually in a choking grief

How we’ve agreed to love one another
without ever opening our eyes
          to the truth