Christian Hawkey
Elke Allowing the Floor to Rise Up Over Her, Face-Up
Elke Allowing the Floor to Rise Up Over Her, Face-Up
Alone in a room with a video camera
means you’re not alone, but lonely.
The floor closed around my lips.
I spoke from a knot. All bodies
are flexible, interlace. A forest
sliced into sections & rearranged
on a horizontal plane: go ahead,
walk on me. I have a wind-up windpipe
vulcanized by the luggage I
arrived with, which is nothing,
nothing special. Swab
my armpits for explosives.
I was never decked out in hairlessness.
The Queen of Spades has the deepest grave.
In the security chute where all passengers
are X-rayed—blue liver, red heart,
white bones—I did a little dance.
I was taken aside. It was a random check.
Yes, by strangers I have received
these hands, unclaimed, these eyes,
unmonitored, these lips
with no return address
in speaking. & those who are shy
would never commit suicide with a gun
because the sound alone
would kill them. Let’s
get a peacock on the squawk box.
Let’s oscillate between
ocelots, one spot at a time.
You can strap a camcorder on the back
of a humpback & all one sees,
at a certain depth, are stars
& beyond the stars, a green, fluorescent mud,
& beneath the mud
a handful of bones, the bones
of a right hand
clutching a flag, the first flag
ever recorded, the flag of the Elamites, from Elam,
whose language remains indecipherable
& whose flag, significantly,
was too small to ever wave
& therefore only waved in private, in praise.
