i am denied foremost by blankets—

by silos with ageing silver seed.

by the skins and edges of brain so flashing,

an ocular cult so brief, so remote

as to demand that i carve a sliver-moon

into my hand:

a cipher cut for wolves

that speak in nascent tongues—who carry desire

in their vacuous mouths.

a celluloid click—pulsing red—opens

into the lens captured in the fist,

and the glyphs that float there:

the epistemic eyelid, the inutile buttocks of space-time,

the bloom of yellow onto the humming gray screen, the flutter of a chamfered

childhood. and then when two projectors stop

i am a limp bat affixed on the stiff suspension of a thick lens,

watched by slats and holes

rotating and winding parallel, halogen,

cross-teamed horses of light.