Union
        April 28, 1972

No paper to stain, no contract to bind.

The hand that grasps a bloody mist grasps nothing.

A bull flipping over and over its horns.

Favor me with your eye, favor me with your lip.

Drawn between them, the man and the woman.

For this I spent, for this I labored?

Coal in its obsolescence, steam in its ever-presence.

A hand grasps a hand grasping another hand.

What was it you said?

Oh, corporation, fast-breeding: new day, new world.

Every whisper and glance instant festivity.

If you look at the sea, you see churning flowers.

The sheet winds and winds and winds.

Whose hands about my heart, what knot tight in my throat?

Witness, you say, eager to be perceived.

One hand a flower, one a torch.

Made for the cleansing, made for the tethering.

One alone I asked to see me. Alone, one would.

What perfect, what union?

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Copyright © 2020 Joseph Campana All rights reserved
from The Book of Life
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission