Parts Unknown

I have not found them yet,
the parts of me I do not trust,
whose purposes I cannot name.

I ask for their names, their colors,
and clear a stretch of shore
where horsemen come to gather memory.
But they do not answer,
afraid of drowning.

Still, when one does step forward,
the others follow,
each a stranger’s face
eclipsed by enmeshment:
themselves phoenix killers
and stillborn liars.

Rancor rushes in,
and my heart folds like paper.
A blind spot opens, smoke
erasing every trace of what lived here.
I cannot pull myself apart.

And no fragile room can hold
the lie of this pain,
which wrecks my body sweetly
and calls up a low, ugly keening.

They know not my age,
or how long they have kept house inside me.
The signs are all there to read
if only a meta-world would open:
the ruminations, the hate,
the thorns lodged in my ribs,
everything they ache to tell me,
what they want, what they need.

Then, suddenly, blue jays of recognizance
appear to dive, fiercely, to guard their nest, and
I thank them with a bow,
a promise to stop burdening them
of what they carry.
For what they carry needs Self
and I am in there somewhere.

So, bless me with embodiment,
blow out the flickers of dispersion,
and I will no longer live above them.
Trace the outlines of the dead
to mark their passage, and I
will be closer to you,
always, always.