SONNET (FOR ECHOLOCATION)

Homely streets terminate at the windowpanes of phantom addresses. A bit of salt in the clouds. What percentage the blood from metals?

A scream, a siren, the two together before the scream alone. Purpose crossing purpose as when the purpose of haste crosses the purpose of defenselessness in the witch light of early condemnations. The confetti of isolations.

The single color where upper and lower distance cannot continue as distance. There were three stars in the evening sky. “Let us kiss three times—and all will be forgiven.”

Proximity might be painful but echo requires a neighborhood, an everyday bird climbing through mistranslation. A stripe of sky campaigns between a block of cold rooftops and the westerly hull of a warm cloud. Interior man, limited man, static.

A helicopter rattles in the rustiness of its own levity, bucking above a plain grid. The taxicab driver remembered a boxer, Ike, he could dance and he could sting, the meter nickling a fare.

this post is part of a double issue. also see SONNET (FOR POKÉMON GO)

10 VARIATIONS ON ECHOLOCATION OR PRAYER FOR A FORMER STUDENT WHO CLINGS TO LIFE IN AN UNKNOWN HOSPITAL.

The word of your name returns as echo. It is my voice but watery, heavy with final syllable. The sound skips across the rain-dark plane of the afternoon.

An echo can originate anywhere: valley, wall, person, recollection, theory, guesswork. One must traverse-try; one must envision the striking-surface. Will I grow expert in the forlorn art?

The object receives the skill of the inquiry. The cleaner the return, the closer the object. But proximity may be a map, the coordinates where echo may originate, in minutes and seconds.  

Proximity might be painful but echo requires neighborhood. If I am to find you, I must suffer through the possibility of shape bent-against blurry color. (Imprecise, me.)

What is echolalia? Echo et alia? As if there were echo + echoes, which confounds the mission to discover. The inquiry at a remove; the jangle of clashing voices + directions.

If the echo never varies. The same stolid note, a clatter in place of language. An echo becomes a bird. An echo becomes a bird climbing through the echo of mistranslation.

A realtor might say: “Echolocation! Echolocation! Echolocation!” I imagine you finding this witty, whatever your state. Laughter, I realize, might disarray the apparatus that sustains you.

Lightning hacks through air toward a tree. The very same splintering noise, a limb separating from the tree. These two at once, lightning and the heavy wood tearing from its trunk. 

What I mean is, I am trying to locate you.

Many years ago, I concluded a poem by writing [that I] try to catch echoes with my hands. At last, I know what these words mean. I will persevere.