Request Radio

American Poetry Review, The, Jul/Aug 2005 by Muske-Dukes, Carol

It's the aftermath of surrender:

after the wound big as the sky.

All the sentries bowing,

The loud blood pouring into

The gutter of morning. Here

The body stops echoing

The heart's monologue, the

Heart's non-stop mimicking

Of what hurts: Rifle-butt

On bone. Boom goes the mind.

We can't stop seeing the eye's

Final images: tide surging through

The great gates of the desert, a

Lost convoy. A single lost conscript

Staring till he sees it, the double gaze

Of the heart, the burned star chart

Of the body. Each of us the body's

Patriot, hero to himself, to his

Spotlit ongoingness. So why this

Uninterpretable signal from where?

To be taught that each of us, once

Only is the soul itself. To be taught

That the colossus rises, one human

Step beyond the breath-colored platform.

Beyond the five tyrant senses. This is how

We, staring at the sky, refuse it, the mind's

Deep resuscitative kiss. This is how the

Mistake pays us back. Give me once more.

Please, silver leaves outside our window.

Trembling music, the miracle of his limbs

Beside me. I know what is circling the house

Voices, broadcasting in the name of victory

In an hourglass, in a seizure of waves and

Crosses, victory in victory because you and you

And I heard it first on Death's request radio.