The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (i) by Richard Siken

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I
am invisible, blackbird over the dark field but I am invisible, what
fills the balloon and what it moves through, knot without rope, bloom
without flower, galloping without the horse, the spirit of the thing
without the thing, location without dimension, without a within, song
without throat, word without ink, wingless flight, dark boat in the
dark night, shine without light, pure velocity, as the hammer is a
hammer when it hits the nail and the nail is a nail when it meets the
wood and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind,
out of nothing, pure thinking, hand of the mind, hand of the emperor,
arm of the empire, void and vessel, sheath and shear, and wider, and
deeper, more vast, more sure, through silence, through darkness, a
vector, a violence, and even farther, and even worse, between, before,
behind, and under, and even stronger, and even further, beyond form,
beyond number, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley
as winter, as water, a shift in the river, I mist and frost, flexible
and elastic to the task, a fountain of gravity, space curves around me,
I thirst, I hunger, I spark, I burn, force and field, force and
counterforce, agent and agency, push to your pull, parabola of will,
massless mass and formless form, dreamless dream and nameless name,
intent and rapturous, rare and inevitable, I am the thing that is
hurtling towards you…

by Richard Siken

published in CUE

Richard Siken is the author of CRUSH. You can keep up with him on his blog.