Anything Can Happen to a Body Like a Brick
Eduardo Basualdo
The hats spinning out of control
accelerate toward the letters of our
names
something is being spelled out
the mosaic contains
bits of grit and blood
the person of what we were getting
to know
has disappeared
and what we were getting to know
been condensed
into the atmosphere of a brick
those who are coupling are
disengaged
while the glances of others are
restricted to falling accidentally
over a glasslike water
a waterlike glass
entrenched surface of a beloved
face now closed like a thing
that if pushed withdraws
the whitegloved hand of the
magician
behind the velvet curtainthe jingling cup extended for spare change
We must calm and reassure ourselves
“I learned the language for you,”
he says, breaking his German
as he drinks tea with
the blond woman
firm gestures that disintegrate and
tremble
are best arrested at the shore of
old mistakes
the hand that opens
is not out asking
ceramic casts may be
fossilized emotion
that if eaten as a mineralsupplement
strengthens the teeth
that must now be held together
by gold rather than silver
which is too weak
too corruptible
we must strip our bodies of their
clothes
as if they were those of our childrenand remember how the Pacific sandstone
felt against our hands
as we pulled ourselves up
over the cliffs of what
resembles
the present
object
We must calm and reassure ourselves
transform ourselves into a new
kind of small bird
that along with honey
forms the diet of shamans
tongues resembling needles
extended into stone flowers
the archaic weightless time
the elastic moment
the tectonic plate
the sliding definition
the hydraulic door
the faultless logic
the sadness of his eyes
We must calm and reassure ourselves
