This is the placeyou would rather not know about,this is the place that will inhabit you,this is the place you cannot imagine,this is the place that will finally defeat you
where the word why shrivels and emptiesitself. This is famine.
There is no poem you can writeabout it, the sandpitswhere so many were buried& unearthed, the unendurablepain still traced on their skins.
This did not happen last yearor forty years ago but last week.This has been happening,this happens.
We make wreaths of adjectives for them,we count them like beads,we turn them into statistics & litaniesand into poems like this one.
Nothing works.They remain what they are.
The woman lies on the wet cement floorunder the unending light,needle marks on her arms put thereto kill the brainand wonders why she is dying.
She is dying because she said.She is dying for the sake of the word.It is her body, silentand fingerless, writing this poem.
It resembles an operationbut it is not one
nor despite the spread legs, grunts& blood, is it a birth.
Partly, it's a job,partly it's a display of skilllike a concerto.
It can be done badlyor well, they tell themselves.
Partly, it's an art.
The facts of this world seen clearlyare seen through tears;why tell me thenthere is something wrong with my eyes?
To see clearly and without flinching,without turning away,this is agony, the eyes taped opentwo inches from the sun.
What is it you see then?Is it a bad dream, a hallucination?Is it a vision?What is it you hear?
The razor across the eyeballis a detail from an old film.It is also a truth.Witness is what you must bear.
In this country you can say what you likebecause no one will listen to you anyway,it's safe enough, in this country you can try to writethe poem that can never be written,the poem that inventsnothing and excuses nothing,because you invent and excuse yourself each day.
Elsewhere, this poem is not invention.Elsewhere, this poem takes courage.Elsewhere, this poem must be writtenbecause the poets are already dead.
Elsewhere, this poem must be writtenas if you are already dead,as if nothing more can be doneor said to save you.
Elsewhere you must write this poembecause there is nothing more to do.
