A Recognition, To George Sand by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Read by me

http://hawkhop.tumblr.com/post/54022559931/to-george-sand-a-recognition-by-elizabeth

they will be unable to

in the beginning god

came to you those hours you in threshold stood

in the frame-- snowy

right knuckled, ciggy-

holding-finger

out door, you turned back, kept

with softlight over your shoulder

the memory would be

wholly warm if you could just

forget
your arm

god came then

those threshold hours / months/    years

in the kitchen

or wherever you talked to the frigidaire/ who was god it was kind

of an accident/ it was before you knew you'd have the power

to exonerate them all/   not the sky eyes above the sheets but

the others all the others

who come after, who came before and washed

you through with voices, eyes,

leafs and numbers:

8s, 11s on plates you count them
you ask them     stop breathing

in my ear, please leave my shoulders be

the Voice-Washers will thencome,

to wash, wash, away numbers

you will ask/  are they washing away god?

she is spoken in the field

inside the shape 
horse apples make 

she lies where she   
gathered 

                  then released each 
apple

into a shape she wanted

(to make the field speak) 

                                           
and the citrus   sweet

is the air the apples make 

on her back   citrus   stars every

where she doesn't feel cold   doesn't feel the sock stick

to her toes    but  the stars 

on her skin do burn

horse apples   green

as walls 

and the shape of her body inside the apples
from above:  

for the birds--

for whom she is lying inside the field's speaking   
wordlike she offers everything
and the birds offer everything

back   and stars
everyone everything is offering itself
the same 

in the morning
the white horse will matter
in the field beside the field 

with its
scattered  

                   green
brain

fruits

driving from there to there there were

driving from there to there there were

shadows on the castle,  my splinterless foot-- holed

pressed on the pedal   light dripped 

down the dreamcatch feather 

hanging, the rectangle mirror watching 

my back-- no!-- gaping: fool, trickster 

(the objects closer than they appear    the objects 

in the blind spots):   

                            but how low, how beautiful still the light 

dripped down the feather's blue   its blue fading

as blue will 

fade from creatures put in drawers

full of paper   spare screws   time 

                                                   before the feather   I was pulling apart 

                                                   a piece of cotton    warming oil, filling

                                                    a woman's ear full 

                                                   with sweet then filling

                                                   her ear with cotton like burial   

                                                   who's there she asked my moving lips  

                                                                                                      tell her 

tell her

I am singing who I am

                                               singing high to reach the jar on the high shelf 

                                               inside a Morphos flitting blue against glass    

and then I am calling

where are you    the woman

her ear full of cotton 

needles in    answers here

her silver goes digging 

in skin in time

my throat curls 

on itself--

like sign language 

fingers who make

the letter e

someone should tell the story--

                              the story which came before 

tweezing the sliver   the story before 

Morphos heaves in the jar

the story for which 

the splinter is the relic to hold 

at times  the story   which can not be forgotten

Octopuses are no more a metaphor

For half a second I had 8 arms for

half a second I was moving

all the plates on the table, setting

forks, arranging

salad spoons glasses all at once

In Greece the octopuses hang

on fences to dry   already

beaten--

not too much
not too little

but a Goldilocks amount

of beaten so they

are not too tough

not too tender

but just the right amount
of beaten

and they are no more

a metaphor than anything else
I have seen today

what i have in common with her blood

When thorns stuck to the stockings

my leg became something else-- a cartoon

cactus, friendly

with its polka dots and purple

like a cactus who says

I won't hurt you   that's when I opened

the bag, found the star-- corners torn, left

as a reminder to the star

(who no longer looked like a star

but a creature   nameless at the bottom of the sea)

I plucked out each thorn at the gate whose lock   unlatched hung

open as an earring and saw her then-- the woman

who was not me, who would not let another pass and I sighed

at the sight of her and a rising was then taking place   wet lipped and breath

the rising taking its warm place   and warmth

rose to the tips of risen things and doors parted : the woman who was not me

stayed there, fingering blood on her arm-- the blood

bright as though it wanted to stay inside her and live

the blood is from the gate, from the teeth she said   I asked whose teeth

and then I was pounding (she did not know which teeth)

I was pounding my fist into my palm

because of what had happened to the star

when the woman said it's okay   she grabbed my fist

and said   I can still tell it's a star

she is making a lovely nothing,

loses the stickers in the rain       she is  

her animal-self   the rain-coming--bone-swell just

before the Unsticking she is

a predictor though it aches    she stickers 

her knees and heads into it not-bird-like  

and close-eyed when it comes,   blind-like and so open 

is rain-and-she   of course she tilts her face   up    

her face is a satellite and the Pacific 

passes through her at any time