HERCULES BETWEEN VIRTUE & VICE

careening over Harlem and its many basketball courts
the great unnecessary sun is undiscovered
by a shadowplay and I descend out of it
to let the underground choke up every inhabitant
between the beating on Sunday and the gi&#fb05; of cash
I stride disconsolate and cannot sleep
in arti&#fb01;cial dark “ it undoes movement
I can’t see the smoke out my mouth
just a bitter glow from some indi&#fb00;erent highway
and the shrouded moon is of no consequence
she does not wake and sleep
she does not mother us “ her birth was quick “ she cut us
in the womb
I am recovering my fatal singularity
and everything is bitter at the mouth
I am the bride of visibility chatting tongues before the morning-light
of vice
in the garret I sculpt a living face “ a form to give us both to presence
in the eyeful absence of a thrumming street beyond a sca&#fb00;old
I am Hedy Lamarr in oils “ victim of blatant blossoms
satellite of pleasures and my blood is on an island of transparency
where ferries don’t arrive but breed momentum
by investigating war
and my Millay is of a treefold nightliness
si&#fb05;ing the roo&#fb05;op into speech
and never needing a reply to pass along
and ripe is dusk and free am I in every a&#fb05;ermath
of casualty
the &#fb01;eld is indivisible

Sylvia Gorelick