A PEACEABLE KINGDOM

—after Ed Fraga’s La Santa E Gloriosa Carne

 

This dream is too dry:

it takes moistness to survive

the night, not broken towers,

flattened obelisks, hills

reclining like a sluggish lover

beneath a sun-bitten sky.

So this is how it feels

when the wind comes

scratching at that door

you closed: your pillows lie

abandoned, an erratic landscape

chisels into the marrow

of your sleep. They’ve got

a sale on plots like these,

and they’ve saved one

just for you. Let this emptiness

be your permanent bed.

No king spread these sheets.

No queen will stretch

from satiny sleep bearing her peace

like a cup of blessed wine

into the day. Oh shadowy

swiveling angel, is it enough

to let light fall

on half a face?

If a door exists in every story,

a window in every dream,

this vacant bed

might still conjure flesh,

conjugality, mirrors that glint

with what could have been: a blue frame extending out, a checkered

pathway in.

​

—Terry Blackhawk

The Light Between

Wayne State University Press