Dismemberment
By DarkStar

let me have no voice.
let me have silence, no louder than the spasm
of an insect spun into the web
let the words find escape through different doors--
eyes, fingertips, palms of hands.
(how strange to find so many different dialects of the common
language of the body; I am certain
they will never decipher exactly what I am trying to say.
I don't know exactly myself,
at any rate.)

let me have no hands.
let me fold them up and tuck them away in a drawer,
stained and burnt saint gloves
let the fingers snap off at their roots, dried twigs
with no leaves left to sing unto the breeze.
(how easily we translate the alphabet of music into the
abstract colors of the senses; I am certain
they will never miss my exact interpretation of Liszt.
I have mourned and have not mourned,
I except no more from them.)

let me have no legs.
let me kick them off, watch them fly into the horizon
over the tops of the ash trees
let the dance pass to another more worth to create
passion, rhythm, beauty, grace.
(how clumsy the house of our souls when compared to its
ethereal inhabitant; I am certain
they will never discover exactly who the skin hides.
I have not even see her myself,
merely gleaned impressions.)

let me keep only my heart.
let me keep it hidden, a tiny brown mouse nestled
in a womb of cotton in a cardboard box.
let the secrets wait until they come to pass--
the insignificant ripened to overwhelming urgency.
(how strange to read the Latin inscribed upon emotions
and revelations of our dreams; I am certain
that I will unravel the meaning presently
and will then have need of voice,
hands, legs.)

let me wait.
let me not die, but not to live too violently:
Hiroshima explosion out of control.
let me believe.

let me have only this,
only this and I will ask no more.