Clothe
I dreamt I fell asleep for a few minutes, exhausted
Screech unfolds in the must
Filigree seen from behind the fretwork
Is our tortured face, is our absent look
Was it “pine for me”
Composed differently the wound
And still confused with now and cotton
Cut first, then measure
We Have Altered the Ways in Which We Hear Music
Or haloed with words – The compositional meets the sensory – is how we are written – is where the phenomenal – self – whispers – is where error meets erratum – when the invention of noise – leaves – where I am made with – expectation – which the present open – reopens.
The Given Is What Accident Refracts to a Gift
Set where various cities touch without tremor – the timbre of a tear – offered – in the fabric of – to a listening where – when straining for – there – when toward – disambiguation – an attentive ear – understands – that it cannot understand – the impulse toward – what we feel we mean – when saying here.
For Years We Pursue it Like Prayer
And I imagine colors too in conversations
leading to the ending,
foaming their phosphorescent streaks.
This hour to the ending is broken.
You take an interest in the dislocation of paths,
while those among us who feel themselves a cipher
undefers the time,
unfolds, at hand, the task,
recites the fragments that be
or may not be our life.
—
Raymond de Borja is the author of they day daze (HighChair, 2012). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apartment Poetry, Big Other, The Capilano Review, Dreginald, Entropy, Heavy Feather Review, Jacket2, The Operating System, Partial Zine, Posit, The White Review, and elsewhere.