I don't dare speak too loudly,
            some timbres could be fatal--

            that string is not too strong
            I think: and at times I have

            to breathe. Or maybe I fear
            my paraphrastic exhalations

            will spoil the oiled perfection
            of its sleekness, will mist

            over that brightness whose
            needle sharp point compasses

            my every stray. I am as
            edgy in my way as it--

            as little-rippled, as subtle.

            Prey to vapors, to sudden
            icecap thaws, seismic

            dicethrows, the world wires me,
            I hex myself up to a pitch

            of infinite finicky sensitiveness,
            alert to every window opening

            down in my castle's bowels,
            every mousehole emergence.

            A simple housefly--a moth
            murders my rest when it

            mistakes for light that glittering
            blade in which every passing

            glint is glassed--barometer
            of my highest apprehension.

            *

            I know my fear is only a ploy,
            a sticking point in the old

            hairsplitting debate of the winds . . .
            I the first split personality

            divide into a Dam/an Ocles,
            a mother and her myopic

            son. Or, since everything
            is reversed in its mirroring

            shaft, a Selcomad, mad and sulky.

            Language does this to me.
            It inverts my position: King

            I am, but await my crown,
            unmanned until it come down;

            my kingdom lies in twain
            to each, I am in half to all.

            *

            If only I could reach up, up,
            and take it in my teeth,

            suckle that penile projection,
            cloister its unremitting hardness

            in the sheath of my throat--

            swordswallower who exalts
            his posture with this adjunct

            second spine, aligning gut with
            palate, my groin with my height.

            *

            Male means to be in the crime
            of things here, this frail planet

            killed wide, maimed down.
            Male means murder, rape and war.

            Its indomitable will will not allow
            approach. All broach will fail.

            It must fall on you or not at all.

            *

            Insane, isn't it? History hangs
            impregnable to the mind, eager

            to halve your brain with rift,
            intrusion and strife, the warrior's

            dissonance. No whole is hallowed,
            no peace. Don't let the humor of

            this scene (when the phallus
            falls the fears recede) attend

            you away from its cruelty.

            *

            I stand here exposed to whose
            justice, my crime my Y

            chromosome. That Y aims
            his prick point down at me.

            A dowsing wand that seeks
            my artesian quench, my depths

            of death. His insistence
            sustains me in steel, his encased

            incursion covers my melt,
            my metal. Each day he rights me:

            his richterscaled tremors are
            my weather, my wherefore:

            his gloss his gleam condemns
            my fortunes, his ore loads my gold

            with schist. His soliloquy
            interrupts mine at every word.

            Linebreaks enforced by sword,
            his poem sunders my rhythm.

            All mine at last is made him.
            His blade remembers my name . . .

            

Copyright © Bill Knott, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.