Coordinates

A map on which the names have been erased, A compass pivoting on a black cross, Sextants dismantled and displayed in a store Razed and rebuilt in the Jewish Quarter—this is How to draw coordinates for the next battle On memory and desire, with a set of tools No one knows how to use. And so the colonel Peeling an orange at the command post Hums an aria from La Bohème Until a mortar lands outside his door. __________ The trial will resume next week, if the judge Survives the latest attempt on his life—though the jury Impaneled for the duration of the war Cannot reach a verdict in the case Of the man gagged and hanging from the ceiling Of the machine shop: the ghost prisoner, AKA God’s beloved. His testimony Must be thrown out, new witnesses examined, And the court reporters banished before the judge Can order him to be strung up again. __________ Cicadas emerge, numbered and ranked, their clear Wings beating—a light arriving from a star Glimpsed from the depths of an abandoned mine. We won’t make it out alive, the guide said And tumbled down the shaft. What remains? A shred of plastic flapping in the nest The birds left in the hedge, a speckled egg That never hatched, a file of summonses Lost in the flood. The trees hum in the dark. Pray for the guide. Pray for everyone. __________ Heroic poses generate suspicion, According to a poll taken on board The wooden ship bound for the Orient. Hence the captain’s orders are delivered Through the sous-chef who signed up to resurrect The art of navigating by the stars. The first mate is afraid to leave his cabin. The stowaway will lead the mutineers. And the passengers will tell you anything If you will take them safely to Ceylon. __________ To break the back of the iambic line, The prisoner in his metal cage, exposed To sun and wind and rain, summoned a host Of voices from the vast storehouse of his reading And listening, and cast them on the page Like glittering shells collected at high tide, In a new line variable as the surf He could no longer hear from his death cell In Pisa: by the law, so build yr/ temple… The verdict? Silence and unsentencing. __________ The tower leans toward mystery. Which is to say: The past, present, and future, the masonry Of which is lined with cracks through which to glimpse A second space—i.e. eternity. Thus Mimi, coughing, seizes Rodolfo’s sleeve To sing goodbye. Thus a seasick passenger Prays for deliverance. And thus the poet charged With treason marks off in the sand the days Until his execution, while the colonel Is buried with full military honors. __________ After the torture and interrogations, The water-boarding and sleep deprivation And menstrual blood flung in his face, the ghost Prisoner revealed the coordinates For the Roman razing of Jerusalem And the itinerary that John followed To Patmos to compose his Revelation For the seven churches in Asia. The guard Removed her underwear. And from the throne Proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices…