Poem (Internal Scene)

To make beauty out of pain, it damns the eyes—

No, dams the eyes. See how they overflow?

No damns them, damns them, and so they cry.

What shape can I swallow to make me whole?

Baby’s bird-shaped block, blue-painted wood

That fits in the bird-hole of the painted wood box?

The skeleton leaf? The skeleton key? Loud

Knock when the shape won’t unlock any locks.

I hear it through the static in the baby’s room

When the monitor clicks on and off, sound

Of sea-ice cracking against the jagged sea-rocks,

Laughing gull in the gale. What is it dives down

Past sight, down there dark with the other blocks?

It can’t be seen, only heard. A kind of curse,

This kind curse. Forgive me. Blessing that hurts.