Pallium

So much happens that we miss or forget,

waking from dreams of the house in my head,

that old haunt still knocking about breaking

things scratching walls hiding under bedsheets,

buoyed by the colourless memory of pain,

as if there were any doors still left locked

anything not yet broken, so tell me

contrary poltergeist what is it you

see in my mind’s silvered folds, and did I

invite you in do I pretend you are

still there when adolescence was the end

what do we become?  And now someone new

playing the part, such Jungian subtext—

you are a child a gang of children you

are scales beneath a sheepskin you are crow’s

feet in a mirror, so many questions

interrogate me slap me try that just

one more time.  Tell me have you seen Schiele’s

Levitation, the curled toes the moment

of departure, are you afraid do you

understand Karagiozis the lantern

behind a stretched sheet, can you feel the rods

are they strong enough to lift a stained glass

skull, my black eyes my light eyes, this arched spine,

do you remember what Kierkegaard said,

am I everything you hate in yourself,

all those feelings circling in my strange heart

whose meaning will forever elude you—

tell me something else I will not forget.