"When they put the train in at Cabin Creek, I gained one eye and lost two. I saw raw meat in a different way—cloudless—and as far as Little Rock, into my belly, now hovering, now descending like a ten-pound anvil."
—Haskell of Piney Bay, aka the Cyclops

minuets at dawn
slide into my pelvis
and arrive unborn i

sleep unmasked
clasping a persimmon

wet in its dream
among linen
cities of linen

waiting on track
two, for an invisible train

that turns back
often into the viscera

or around the pupil
finding a point of entry
whose gesture terminates

you want my body in stone
i want the concrete
of your flashing hair

as if sand (hollow
and infinite)

departed
casually from your scalp

i am a nomad in your hand

stepping the nails, jumping
cross-ties and looking back
where you used to be
budding in a tomb

and how i was sure of time
down to the last strip of skin

or clothing, in which
rainwater

collected the drone of names
and people walked to work, browsing

columns of coffee and print
ending on platforms unnoticed

among their water gear