What Came to Be Called Values

--for kari edwards after reading Bharat Jiva

I.
Since we are disciple
And we are disciplined

The sky rhymes with interpellation
And history rhymes with sorrow

I plays dead the real
Dead can't even counter-

fire or be recalled
At a speed faster
Than the speed of light

A sun without shadow
Shining in these holes
And other holy
Places of disagreement

Your shrapnel erotica
Your maze of skin
Tests living labor

Make us governable
Virtuosos yet you keep moving

A kind of angel of discourse
I.e. an instant

Messenger mediating
The memoir of our mnemotechnique

What came to be called values.

II.
Play dead no one no longer will
Will this maze of skin

Docile flesh performance who is a hostage
To their inherent values

I am listening to your time sense
To the gerunds in your breath

That won't let your body be possessed
By anything except catastrophe

And negative experience which is a mode
Of I without name or defense

Our death and their deaths become porous
Yet irreplaceable

Neither the sky or the earth are transcendent
But present a world outliving us.