Pallas (I-III)

I.

are you through with

courting memory,

with being saved

are you mad,

have you learned laughter, 

to act without words

are you brave

or just tired of that metric

are you moth-drawn to sublimity now

(you reside on the inside of the flame)

are you well-rendered,

are you drawn in or 

down

do you laugh now

roll in soil

name each pomegranate

weep when warranted

forgo requests

give your name freely

forgive all fathers

stand behind silence

pull up the stakes from

the ground around beauty

like a fire that consumes all before it

II.

you reside on the inside of the flame,

on the backs of the eyelids of all gods worth praising.

are you outside the arc

of the arrow of time -

that thin parabola

where what flies is always burning

with decision, direction,

the fatal assurance 

of an ending in ash

are you plasma-burning on the waves now

beyond reclamations

or portrayals

do you laugh now

III.

because names are given,

they are hard to take away

but this also means

they are hard to shake off

do you sometimes let it get to you,

all this image 

when what haunts your memory

is faceless

are you ashen with desire

(it comes only in the memory of fire)

but no one can take a name,

not really.