[what desire does not seem]

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as of the distance across a sea.

meridians meet ley lines in carnal, I mean cardinal, directions.

not only on the flesh but of, through.

didn’t Paracelsus say the choreography of sky’s sun, moon, & stars corresponds to the stars, moon, & sun orbiting inside the viscera, that other vault, smaller heaven?

blank spaces on maps were sleeping beauties once.

(I’ve known a kiss to wake.)

but not blank or beautiful anymore, the cartographer said—homo sapiens being a fundamentally invasive species — &, what’s more, somnolent.

how the only terra still incognita sleepwalks between brain & mind, neither beginning, neither ending.

as if a gate one can enter, gridlines drawn by a hand that touches to see.

not through any needle’s eye falling blue, nevertheless.

red bird through the human — not eye, but in — beyond.

tremolo, in the gospel desert flower according to Agnes Martin, unbeckoning grass.

white stone, little sister, white flower.

on a clear day where wood, where stone.

“without cause in this world.”

innocence, say, or everyday happiness, even love.

often, untitled, eternity.

                  — for Brian Teare