[Lightness is unfolding]

Lightness is unfolding,
a current
pressed

inside a breathing space
which is another's
chamber.

The space could be protective,
latticed,
perceived in steps,

and never-ending.
Or with an end
that nonetheless will spill

in the direction
of a cloud
and a river.

The river has emerged
in conditions of sadness,
in imitation of

abstract flowers,
which have themselves
grown wilted

in proportion
and resistance.
As a face is blown across

a vacancy
in the breath between reactions,
one breath at a time

scalding, effacing
her mission,
loath to call sincerity

into the pattern.
Into the next one.
As once a feeling was permissible,

though impossible.
Coughed up
into the mordant haze,

the baffling work of terms
flute-like in their influence,
all infinitives

recorded through the light of
one quickening eye
and lift of looking.

The look tends to lower
now towards the left,
now towards the middle,

then despairing
of aspiration,
of trying.

Trying will loom
over the store
of ends,

and sharpness will mar
fingers
in the service of entry,

each suffering acute,
even, perhaps, rigged
to fix the plan

or transcend it.
The subject is then stirred
towards a conclusion.

Copyright © 2006 Lisa Lubasch All rights reserved
from Twenty-One After Days
Avec Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission