Alexandre Ferrere
from
Mechanical Ode to a Snake




         ...

         Sometimes there is no
       thing left to do—Comment
     se souvenir of what happened to us
             between language & language?
          My words can’t think
               & I don’t know
        as many words as you do.
     You must be lying down
in the yellow of another sunflower;
    or your back against the wall;
  you’re not precise but exact—I wait.
          I swallow an oyster
          the size of a world—I hope
          to choke on a pearl,
     only to find my heart is broken,
a hole the      shape of a gunshot—no one moves,

so I toss            a coin
         & up    it goes
                             & up it’s still going.
   I obey the phases of the moon.
(Vitre)                                                   (Vitriol)
                     Spin like a devil.

I’m gonna dig
                      through the ashes
                      through God
                      through I’m through
& hide
            behind the log house
            behind the veil
            behind you
            behind the night
            behind language
  until behind decays decays decays to
            being.
betweenthehighway CCLA 0.4
wherever
visible and invisible
streets meet