after Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog
With booms & chirrs seals
speak under the ice of an ocean
frozen over.
Stationary ocean. Electrified song.
Color: snow day with autumn
leaves inside it,
glassene sheers of cantaloupe & kiwi on
lavender, gunmetal, jetwing—
When you rode the elephant through
the puncture, the first syllable of my name
parted the deep with your beautiful hand.
Sparrow shuddered in her dustbath, swath of pleasure
raked up
& out.
This is where I sat
in the avalanche.
In winter,
where I was born,
you pulled a cord of silk in your beautiful hand.
I heard nothing
under the ice. Bye bye now, our people would say.
Bye bye later.
First, song,
a detonation—
then white everywhere.