HEART THREAD Parts Sixty-Five and Sixty-Six

65.

Any hand that touches is a dead man’s
hand

you feel old Time along your skin

caressing or pressing leaving small
scratches

later you can read as words runes or
oghams

or just the southern whiteness of
your back saying nothing at all

of course we want the body of the
other to talk back

what else is other for but revelation

apocatastasis and the whole cosmos
reels back to the start

before we were one and two and many,
mind

a white sail far out on an old sea

up to you to tell if setting out or
coming home

weird cargo and all the sailors sleeping day
and night.

66.

On the fifth day of the fifth month behooves
to mount

highest point on the island view of
other islands

what more can a word do but open the
door

other words on other words sending
sea light before storm

storms remind us of where we’re
coming from

so much mercy so little sense we call
it police

we live inside it as if it had a roof
over it

it has nothing up there but numbers
we live in a machine

or we live as a machine this beach is
pure numerical

this seven is a diamond ring my
mother wore all the time

I saw the same blue light in crystal
once in the Himalayas

what was I doing there what was my
name.

ROBERT
KELLY