After the Orgy

the light is dusked and ashen pink, a time
of day that has always held a fascination for me, in fact

the first time language confessed the possibility of latency, of
a hidden interior, was
when I learned that this light
was called crepuscular

its athleticism, all
bravado and necessary hubris, thrown
into a final parting curve from behind a mountain

speaking to the sun
and its shadow, this
word spoke
with knowing sympathy, saying
that language could be an accomplice

and this light is here the condition of poetry

as perceptibly,
material certainty dissolves
into a shadow that spreads
like the most delicate bruising

I remember
when your fear for your health, your fear
of not being able to breathe or speak
overlapped with fear for the air itself, fear
for the ocean, and for creatures

and a fear
of everything that had been discarded, collecting
somewhere into chains of waste mountain
and rogue island states

I recall the overlapping fears
and then the ashen skies, and
the perpetual dusking of days that followed
they are all held here in place
by something so formal
as a bright blue cross, the
missing complement to our new
waking days

but also here
is a succulent angelhood, that
blooms after the cherub has dried and fallen away

a succulent emblem, filled
with a latent knowing that
after the rot that follows the ferment
that follows the harvest is when
the ground is most fertile

the snaking tendril, barbed vine, that
I now know as your signature, an
emblem of how you tend to chaos
the way a gardener might, knowing
how many months of putrescence and acid
are equal to the single day
of dazzling sweetness

the tender of chaos is also
the tender of men and
the tender of their obtuse requests, from
minds drained of blood, diverted
to their dicks

the wheel of fortune

and in the words of another, “matter
is just exhausted light”

pleasure is its own proof

and after the orgy,
when everything is still
and wet
and the fear has condensed into a sober scatter
of city morning dew,
call or message me to say that you got home alright