Peter Gizzi

To describe a logic of sight

pull the surface onto target and

arrive at zero aperture. Then

fluctuate to a face, reproduced

in serial format, superimposed

upon marginal pedestrians,

traversing a polarity of earth.
The axis here is askew, perhaps

unsettling, the way physical equilibrium

slides into multiple perspective.

This place where

sight informs the eye as gate

to phenomenon, a bridge to

impulse the imaginary.

Simply
she was feeding bread to pigeons

in the park. So begin this lesson with rain

and square the surrounding

flat with common traffic.

I move through, to get here.

If you want me, you will find me

in the garden of vestiges, next to
the sweet water cistern.

Where the old port remains,

a watermark on granite,

abutted withgrass and a stone path

leadingto other places that for the moment

I am not interested in, as I take

serious your claim to provoke you.
And I will follow your instructions,

however silly, however sublime,

until you have found me, indistinguishable

from what you call, your self.

The way I wear you about my mouth,

as a crease, deepening

every time I smile to look at you.
Look at me. I'm serious,

I must find the way, to say, we have arrived.

For it is you who instructs me

in the laws of perspective, these many

converging, lines, drawn to perception.

So that I have become only a star or

an asterisk or a compass rose.

Signifying location, this possibility of place.

True.

It's been said that the burial of the dead

is the beginning of culture, as we know,no other.

And I remain raw.

Vapor digit tapping at my wrist,

the talon, the dorsal fin and the panther claw.

The value of negative space
and the rationale of talisman does not parse,

will not parry from this dearth.

As emotions surround the edge of the planet

adjusted to actual people we meet.

What could the difference of this construction

intend in a world of moments,

merely fragments provided to express conversation
or random noise signaling gray space,

to be inserted within an imported structure?

Birds migrate over cityscape and arrive

in my backyard to a mutiny of peaceful dawn.

Then a description of equality is scored,

as a rhetorical flourish is installed

for testimony.

I flag, I stammer.
A banner to the burden that all things

that are, must not be, in me.

Only,will you not smile,

when I wave?