The Wake

What follows
before the first word?
What tree’s dead falling fruit cracks
open upon the ground feeding
you seeds: the knowledge
of apples and gravity, falling
neatly into chalk outlines laid out
like a child’s school uniform waiting

for the word.
The knowledge—
waking dreams in pictures: the ghost
of Van Gogh’s ear
still hears
the color of morning
light at soundspeed racing
to your waking lucid
eyes, scratching sleep from your temple
with mother’s brooches—pearls
and dreams and unnatural
understanding. Cleanse
yourself

in a warm shower
you’ve been dirty so long
you’ve gotten used to your own
smell, forgotten the warm
wet drops
on your
skin
drip dry in the breeze.
Cleanse yourself.
The third eye

of the hurricane will wash you
beneath your skin, leave
behind the flesh after
the storm, lucid
awake.

Once I was a child in a family –
now left to wander blind,
scratching at scars.
Awake in dreams.
Lucid only in sleep.

Unnatural understanding –
the knowledge of nakedness.
Life
an
ellipsis . . .