Cosmix: In & Out

Firmament—lid and limit, line
dividing us from them and this from that—
a hemisphere above the ground that bounds and binds
raqiya—spread and pounded, like a bowl
a big brass bowl that sounds with every tap

Ping! Ping!

—and when it’s done, you wear it like a cap

Telephone lines with pigeons and crows
breach your dark glasses’ rims—in / out of sight,
as you focus on
the bumper’s glare in front of you and curse
the rush hour clutter
and sky slides quickly hauling in the night

Pantheon, superdome, their arcs
a literalizing of the rule:
Containment
with an escape clause—
oculus or drain
stairway to heaven, speeding bullet train
out from the climatized mall into scrub and brush

and carefully catalogued imagined danger.

We follow gods or swap
the seraphs for a stick or ball
gather like crows on wires to describe
to review, renew, and re-incise

Planetarium posting all the world
in a densely feathered space,
moistened by the warm breath of consensus on our necks
we stare through enclosed infinity
out toward . . . what?

Picture the Babel builders with their chisels
piercing the circling ceiling of fixed stars
firmament, eighth heaven, boundary fence—
black subtly humming line, where stars like crows
perch calling, calling, calling for the night
when boundary crossers wind their furtive flight.

Pozzo’s quadratura ceiling opens wide
if you stand beneath to gape in awe.
It summons faith as it defies belief
The ribboned clouds in bursts of vectored light
writhe with the eager putti into skies
that recede forever—
but climbing toward the rafters you bump your crown
and open—no break-up— the painted dome.

Crack!— the piñata— Damn!

Thick chunks spin out and downward as the plaster center falls.

You fix your firmament like a mourner’s shawl.
You follow blue that seems both wide and near,
watch clouds that hover over the river’s rush
to watch themselves flow by.
Consider the paradox of endless sight that stops
with the setting sun, the switched off bulb, the closing eye
and tether your vision on the road ahead

A single crow lifts with a white
chunk of soaked bun
the black wings flap
and bear him out of sight

You take your begging bowl and crown of light.
In your hand
an azure chip of porcelain sky.

1959

At the Patio Cafeteria in the Glendale mall
where we ate every Thursday for a year
the three of us when I was maybe seven

the screen that formed the wall to contain the line
was structured of interlocking circles, linked
in chains of chains, implying patterns
upon patterns to my hungry, childish eyes

gold-burnished aluminum it kept
me staring, studying, following the complicated lines
all the way to the register and the woman
at the cashier’s station, who sat
between customers, for it wasn’t ever busy Thursday night
knitting and knitting and knitting
once with dark blue ribbon, flat and wide

fascinating!

after the food from the clever bright steel steam tables
consumed at a table for four, though we were three,
and dessert—pudding or pie on heavy plates
from nests in fields of chipped ice
and all beneath the glass canopy with lights,
just higher than my head and the parallel stainless pipes
that channeled us with our round-cornered trays to her
hulk of a cash machine with its high, round keys
on their bent metal arms like a typewriter
clacking and ringing between the needle clicks

after the last sweet bite, I would go
and watch and talk
as the knots accumulated row by row
across the needles till she switched
at the end and knitted back again
and she told me what I’ve forgotten
and listened to me, which was huge
as I liked to spin my thoughts into
every inch of space, so I would talk
and she would make fabric of yarn

and I thought
she was a genius
and we would be friends
forever.