Wandering Cataphasis that Begins Outside
My New Jersey Window

Ex hiis clarissime constat maximum 
absolute incomprehensibiliter 
intelligibile pariter et innominabiliter 
nominabile esse...

—Nicholas of Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia I

Of the church across the street with the 
            busted window
of the church’s chimney blowing no 
            smoke
of the blue sky behind the chimney
of the vultures perched there spreading 
            their wings to dry in the day’s heat
of the beak that pecks the feathers clean 
            of gristle
of the glistening eye of the dead
of the winking alarm a star makes which 
            is the dead eye’s counterpart
of the scraggly chamber the trees trace in 
            winter
of the woman come from the tropics now 
            licking the marvel of a fistful of ice
of the creaking back door she opens 
            before she knocks snow from her 
            shoe
of the foot itself whose architecture is a 
            chapel or cathedral (obviously! 
            See the arches have fallen!)
of the rough skin cracking the woman’s 
            heel and dry skin of the big toe and 
            the ball of that foot upon which 
            she spins her whole self for such 
            gladness at the cold and equal 
            gladness for when that cold 
            recedes into the earth
of the pristine teeth of the cheersquad
of the girl’s cheek quivering to hold her 
            good smile
of the boy she sneers at for unwittingly 
            standing in her lamplight
for a fading quasar the last electrons’ 
            surrender
for the grandfather zapped in a field by 
            lightning and the last follicle to 
            lose its excitement
for the same grandfather who kept all his 
            hair
for the same grandfather’s ears so large 
            they promised he would live to a 
            hundred
for the mother whose blood pressure 
            surpassed that of an elephant
for the elephant’s slow pulse
of the sudden surrender to spring when 
            the children join the calendar’s 
            jubilance by assuming the pose of 
            vultures on a rooftop
of the rooftop which is profane
of the congregation that queues a living 
            transverse beneath the rafters 
            whose beams brace the angles 
            which the scavengers’ talons grip
of the tasteless wafer placed in the 
            congregant’s mouth 
of the four directions of departure
of the other four directions and the four 
            thousand which have no name
of the exponential magnitude of the birth 
            moan
of the whistling harmonics of the last breath
of the blessing that the dying leave to the 
            living who curse them
of the thumb gone cold
of the weeping in the hallway
of the bad wood of the floorboard
of the splinter in the sole
of the dirt road intersection where the 
            strange-faced angel removes his 
            jacket for the man who lacks one
of the watch in his pocket which does not 
            tick
of the blade the boy tucks back into his 
            belt
of the dent the boy leaves in the door of 
            the neighbor
of his swift stride down the road before 
            the neighbor catches him
of the neighbor’s anger cooked down to 
            sorrow and the sorrow distilled 
            into music and the music filling the 
            biggest room of his little house and 
            how his wife loves him so much 
            she opens her lips to kiss the air of 
            the music he has made of his 
            anger which changes the sorrow of 
            her man and the heartbreak of the 
            boy who knows only to pour all his 
            fury into a single kick to try and 
            break down a door that is locked to 
            him and what a heartbreak that he 
            did not knock instead for what if 
            someone let him in
and what a time for mischief
and a time to bounce quick
and a time to fling open a door and not 
            chase the rascal fleeing down the 
            block as if a man could see 
            himself running away from his own 
            mercy
What a time for mercy
What a time to visit the dead
What a time for the dead to visit
What a time to sit my ass down and listen
What a time to sharpen my knives
What a time to lift them to the light
What a time to brandish their shine 
            midday to catch the hot sun on its 
            edge
What a time to sheath them
What a time to harvest the bitter greens 
            by hand
What a time to let the asters fill the boggy 
            yard until they go to seed
What a time to set the fallen stalks upright 
            or to pull them up by the roots
What a time to fashion a broom 
            from last year’s brush
What a time to hear the barbecue brag 
            keep up with the woodpecker’s 
            spring rhythms
The broken song
The broken thank you
The broken bone of the left pinky
The broken code
The broken vault
The broken sentence is a doxology
The broken lock 
And the broken record 
and the broken trigger
and the broken bracelet etched with the 
            prayer of a stranger 
The broken promise
and the broken drum
the broken voice is a doxology
the child chanting in the street for the first 
            time is a doxology
the dirt caked to the palm is a doxology
the mushroom opening its skirt in rainfall is a doxology
the rainfall itself a doxology
the drought a doxology
doxology of the absent-minded 
doxology of the stray dog
doxology of the mendicant reciting the 
            names of the living
doxology of the changing of names
the naming of change
the doxology of change
the doxology of same
the doxology of the feather dipped into ink
doxology of the field through which no 
            bullet flies
doxology of the field the possum enters and exits in his own pace
doxology of the thin tail the prehensile tail 
            the tail’s balance the wielding of 
            the mystical tail in conflict
its pink is a doxology
the bright-lime blinking on the butt of a 
            firefly is a doxology
the weeds where the bugs are fucking is a 
            doxology
the ruminant nuzzling the pasture for 
            fresh grub is a doxology
the oxen’s lopsided gait is a euphoria its 
            euphoria a doxology
the slats pried free from the fence are a 
            doxology
of the crowds pouring through the breach 
of the crowds not trampling one another 
            or the earth but moving out in 
            unison taking the wrong road 
            home
of their out-of-tune singing
of the celestial scales that contain their 
            strangeness and disaffinity
a quarter-tone doxology
a melismatic doxology
the slope and solemnity of lemons
soft yellow petals on a secondhand dress
the yes to slow dance
the parting from a slow dance
the dawnlight coming up blush on two 
            new lovers’ slow dance
the springtime moon shivering down one 
            bare arm
the rattle of five coins and a stone in a 
            pocket
that a tambourine’s jingle can cut
that every bell strikes a new syllable
that their language of farewell is endless
that a man can travel six days from the 
            ocean and still taste the ocean
that the ospreys follow him partway back
that the eye is a steward
the nose is a steward
the tongue the ear the fingertip are 
            stewards
that the belly button maps us in the 
            cosmos
that the armpit reeks for work
that the armpit reeks for wisdom  
that it takes several grown men to hoist 
            the body of a mother to their 
            shoulders
that a man can learn to twist long green 
            fresh leaves in his fat fingers as he 
            once learned to braid a child’s hair
that a grandmother’s hair smells like ash 
            and river water
that the women of the village know where 
            the river is slow and shallow
that they crunch their skirts to their 
            crotches and wade in
that the older sister teaches the boy the 
            shapes of an ancient alphabet on 
            a dried leaf
that the boy will now write his affections 
            on a leaf for his crush to find on 
            her way to school
that the school’s desks smell like vinegar
that the children hide their hungers
that one girl learns to play a guitar with 
            five strings
that she thumps the body with her middle 
            knuckle
that the knock frees the boys for once to 
            shimmy 
that their fathers aren’t yet ashamed of 
            their sons who shimmy 
for the liquor they smell on their fathers’ 
            beards
for the bottle they will hide behind a tree
for the bowl of rice they urge the sick one 
            to eat
for the bowl of rice half eaten
for the fowl who come to peck the 
            remaining grains
for the hen whose belly is sliced open
for the fresh egg still inside
for the murderer who harvests the lunar 
            oval
for the blue hue of his hand’s vein
for the murderer’s gentle tap of its shell 
            against a wall 
for the shell’s crack seeping its viscous 
            yolk  
for the saint the killer names before 
            sipping all the way down
for the other birds come to pull at the 
            entrails
for the gaping mouths of the chicks
for the tiny gullets in free chorus
for the downy necks
for the furcula which stiffens the body for 
            flight
for the coefficient of friction of a diving 
            kestrel’s breast
for the aerodynamics of chimney swifts
for the tetrachromatic sight of the avian
for the iridescent flash of a grackle’s wing
as the wing’s spectacular angles are a 
            doxology
as the human wrist’s crook in embrace
as the big toe in mud
as the flared nostril
as the nipple erect
as the cilia of our listening 
as the cystic bulge of the nape
as the asymmetry of the rhomboids
as the sore muscles of the buttocks 
as the animal nerve of the coccyx
as the blunt tip of the xiphoid process
as the deep-sea thunder the blood makes 
            when a lover presses one ear to 
            the belly
as the capsized hull of the kneecap
of the vessel’s keel turned upright
of the crew gripping the storm’s wreckage
of the one who swims off to shore for help
of the sister who asks if her brother has 
            come home
of his body that belongs to the ocean
of the ocean that belongs to no one
of the water that belongs to no one
of the estuarial shifts
of spring tides and neap tides
of amplitude and phase lag
of wave and oscillation
of this way and that 
of the hips in sacred conjunction
of the curling of the toes
of the holiness of the sternum 
of the holiness of the acetabular notch
of the holiness of the inner thigh
of the chemistries in its sweat
of the mystical properties in its sweat
in the condensation of our breath
in our kinship to clouds
in our kinship to their slow rotation 
in our kinship to storms
in our kinship to wind and how it shifts
in the stutter step and crossover
in the swiping of that high dribble
in the swift contraction of the extensor 
            digitorum
in the opening of this hand
in the smack of a calf skin
in the clack of bamboo
in the clack of rattan
in the flick of a fly
in the acceptance of three seeds
in letting them go into a hole in the earth
in the cup of our palms to drink from
in the pissed off flick of a finger in the 
            precise direction of a king  
in the arc the arm traces to gesture from a 
            distance Come now Child Come
in the dust unsettling on the last step of 
            the ladder a young girl climbs to 
            claim a book from its high shelf
in the caress of a casket’s curve or the 
            wiping down of a ripened calabash
in the half fist we use to close the window 
            that looks out onto a church 
            whose guardians have groomed 
            their dark plumage to descend for 
            their evening meal
in the crooked finger to point the way
though we cannot find God by digit or 
            scheme
What we cannot complete is a doxology 
            of tomorrow
What we cannot remember is a doxology 
            of the imagination
Every question when it sings is a doxology
Every doxology is—[Where is God]—
            unfinished
Every question that sings must repeat
The miracle is a kind of looking
We cannot look everywhere at once What 
            a miracle
we are so incomplete