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Yet is he monster?
In the memoried nights, the recollection
of cable cars will burn like the moon-large, looming
exit sign, unmistakably closer. Perhaps
these hands have fewer wrinkles than imagined --
a man can only do so much, resurrect himself sans make-up
for the cameras, return to outer-space like it were home,
cast himself into the framework of buildings;
become a rivet.
When the squalor stacked behind the alleyway begins
to decompose it will be history or be forgotten,
each one of us is marked
with one small tragedy that burns behind our eyes,
a poltergeist whose chill presence will cause the polite masses
to wander just a step away; The newspaper remarks
the hero’s breathless return to the stars, rising like the dream
of Icarus; The newspaper remarks
the death of a monster whose name
is chiseled off his first wife’s tombstone.
Which of these is human?
Which of these do not define our boundaries?
Seems these days like everyone I know is in pain,
engulfed in shuffling for change, raising the cost
of a pack of cigarettes. We’re burning witches.
We’re carving Jack O’ Lantern smiles into our flesh --
alight with blood, just real enough to forget
that ritual does not deter the darkness much.
We’re lighting candles;
Setting places at the table for the constellations, the ones
who burn so bright as to be an outline -- less a man than a map
of something greater. “See these lines: the representation
of forgotten roads. Call these haggard eyes a city.
Constantinople. Fare from one place to another.”
It’s the bellicose howl that makes one man Adonis and the other
a Modern Prometheus -- both steal fire from the Gods;
both understand burnt fingertips. Observe
the crackling voice of the mechanic;
long-haired kid selling coffee;
red-haired waitress in the pin-striped dress.
Become an arc in the framework of their context. Become stone.
Be less the wretched bag of liquid chained to gravity,
not yourself but an inflection in their voice, and understand
you will be hated for this. Understand: the cheering admirers
don’t differ from the madding crowd.
Survive all this.
Become the moon.
It is enough
©2003, Victor Infante
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