The Untold Witch
1
She would
sigh, if she
could think of
anything intolerable.
her numbers
fold, in
planes she can
not describe.
Does she
close her eyes for
that faint
red of processes?
Come to me,
by instinct or
for mathematics’
sake.
2
She
moves
in a metaphor of
action.
Heaven, she
says, is
hell
remembered.
Outside her
gaze, I’m
stranded
on fraudulent heights.
No
tune I
know is far
enough out.
3
Man is a matter of
walking
upright, but she
suggests happiness.
Her whole
power
is one the side
of vagueness.
Everything I
need to
know about her is
just before me.
What
can I learn
that is not already
gone?
4
Mountains rule
the world because
she’s
from the hills.
When she stands
perpendicular to the
sun’s rays, her
light is confined.
If she
turns,
the objective
weakens.
We shall not all
rise, but
all
be modified.
5
I see her
long after
she has
gone away.
There are whole
systems
she
doesn’t respond to.
If you
look long enough
everything
is hydraulics.
Out of a
series of partial
images, she is the
one that detaches.
6
If I could
remember
her, we
might build.
Will my
words be fan-
tastic enough to
count?
Whatever
happens now, we
have been
opposite.
Please believe me,
I would
seek you if I
had the distance.
7
Given
time and
invention, she
will surface.
She will
scratch,
meditate, and some
story will suffer.
I refuse to
believe
things unsupported necessarily
fall.
She deprives my
dreams
of un-
reality.
8
The hardest
step to take is
always the
next.
She is written
across
her
face.
We are
what we
are, momentary
coincidence.
She is
body,
speaking
through body.
9
She will claim, for
instance, King
Solomon planted
baobabs in India.
And it
may
be
true.
A fine long
rain
penetrates farther
than storms.
Food is
necessary
and
also logic.
10
Sometimes I’m
angry, and
not at
anything in particular.
She has
seven
divisions, but
no borders.
I could
change your name, since
you always
wanted to be fictional.
Another
unsolved
dream, under
the bridge
11
She has, it would
seem, no
natural
inclination to rise.
She is
whatever I
cannot get
rid of.
She’s whatever
refuses
to be
information.
She is my
absence,
my only secure
reference.
12
Just when I’m
ready to let
go, satisfaction
is satisfaction.
Curious text, where
we’re commanded to acquire
Nirvana.
Nothing but
impatience
could prompt our
abrupt recognition.
she says virginity
of the mind
can be
restored.
13
Let me
not praise
her past her
due.
She is
a heap of
pebbles
in exquisite random.
Her laughter
rings
empty, where there
were crowds.
My arms
around
you, my
love, are phantoms.
14
She appears sometimes
to be talking
about
other data.
It is as
if she
knew a separate
category.
I tell
her, weeping’s
no proof
of the resurrection.
All
of her is
curved
and alters.
15
She can
only
be pictured
as catastrophe.
She con-
fuses
concepts with
irony.
Her thought spreads,
like
children
running home.
She
finds comfort in
the most outrageous
limbs.
16
The moon, according
to her, is
a symbol
for shine.
Residues
provide the
passion
of thought.
Her reflexes
condition
my
mythology.
She is the
energy
of my
indexes.
17
When she
snarls at
me, my
senses sharpen.
Who could expect
her,
without
lying?
She is a
color
outside
the octave.
Her rituals
divide my
life
from its labors.
18
She makes
the right
answer
sound foolish.
The righteous
glory
in their un-
certainty.
Two
nuts represent
us in
divination.
The only
thing she
comes home in
is twilight.
19
She sits
in the
street, making
detours.
Her history is
rich
in in-
decisions.
She is
present,
inclusive,
untransformed.
I do not
pretend
to know
how the flood came.
20
A hymn
describes the
monotony
of her expectations.
She was
created
from the sweat
of peacocks.
Children
defend themselves
with shame
and experience.
All her
objects
answer to the
same name.
21
Better a blank
wall than
simple
dark.
The play in
her muscle de-
termines
where my eyes focus.
She
sleeps at
the curve
of my spine.
She wouldn’t
believe
me, if I
were to tell her.
Copyright Credit: Keith Waldrop, "The Untold Witch" from Selected Poems. Copyright © 2016 by Keith Waldrop. Reprinted by permission of Omnidawn Publishing.
Source: Selected Poems (Omnidawn Publishing, 2016)