To Move Beyond the Mirror’s Edge

“[T]he heart cut by a sliver of glass
in a wasteland of thorns,
[…]I want to lie, my love, alone with a syllable
of destroyed silver[.]”

— Pablo Neruda (Pablo Neruda, «Alianza (Sonata)» / “Alliance (Sonata),” Stanza 1, Lines 1–2 and Stanza 3, Lines 11–12 (Lines 1–2 and 26–27), in Love Poems: Pablo Neruda: Translated by Donald D. Walsh, published at New York by New Directions Publishing Corporation in 2008; pages 84, 85, and 87. Parallel text in Spanish: «[E]l corazón cortado por un vidrio / en un erial de espinas, / […]quiero estar, amor mío, solo con una sílaba / de plata destrozada[.]»)

“[A]nd holding it toward me, my open
mouth in the mirrored walls a thousand times retold.”

— Diane Seuss (Diane Seuss, “[I’m watching A Face in the Crowd],” Stanza 1, Lines 13–14, in frank: sonnets, published at Minneapolis, Minnesota by Graywolf Press in 2021; page 50.)

“In the company of bones that shine in the dark[,] The Enlightened anticipate catastrophe. They’re the only ones who know God’s name. The rest of us can’t pronounce it, because the secret language must be learned, and it hides from us like a white snake devouring itself.”

— Agustina Bazterrica (Agustina Bazterrica, “[Section 4]” and “[Section 6]” in The Unworthy: A Novel: Agustina Bazterrica: translated by Sarah Moses, published at New York by Scribner in 2025; pages 10 and 11.)

                         i.

These are new
pornographies penned to
offend those gods
others threaten their
lovers to become.
Ask your Self:
are you Pro-Me
or here just
for The Us?
Thunder stolen races
a backward path
to heaven, nears
the fallout from
Man’s Fall following
the scorched earth
of its crash’s
farce, searches the
soil’s face for
any remains of
misplaced faith over
which to laugh
and travel moving
on from fast,
mimics Eden’s enviable
inconceivable green-screened scenery,
deceives by degrees,
echoes its memory’s
reverberation revelating, mercifully
egresses as efforts
enervate racing its
bolt around a
course swallowed words
curse. Translates almost
too late relics
of yesterday’s bedded
bad dates today’s
break annihilates when

                         ii.

the planet wakes.
Pulsing its return,
carnal desire informs,
tells on wires
what a bruised
soul telegraphs through
exertions flesh performs.
Bent to form,
verse emerges from
its purge fully
porned. Pulls an
alrighter dialogue written
into the meaning
of a deleted
title card. Mistaken,
taken for granted,
blazing passion’s fiery
temper as justification
waiting a night
that lasts a
lifetime to cycle
through a real
drama, acting convincing
as a scripted
miracle that it
believes a role
so small as
a mere mortal’s
can transform this
existence into a
star vehicle. That
is to say,
this volume speaks
in turns of
phase too colourful
to mute. Pisses
on tradition until

                         iii.

pastels diminish and
all hell bleeds
through pages its
unpalatable tastelessnesses enough
you will begin
to feel you
were meant to
end up downing
what confessional lyrics
languish and drown
here. Sins inked
to be read
without regrets, as
they were lived.
Directives fingered in
breath stressing the
imperative to move
beyond the mirror’s
edge. A preface
to pleasure’s punishment,
intended to elicit
reminiscences of innocence
lost in Paradise
when pairs of
eyes together surmised,
in an instant
behind twinned sighs,
the cost of
boundless nights ended
up spent exiled
far from the
unkindest love loneliness
buys. Deception abides
lies to reflections
I despise. Expletive,
conceited, indecent, divine!
Evil halved divides.