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by Richard Siken

The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (i)

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible, blackbird over the dark field but I am invisible, what fills the balloon and what it moves through, knot without rope, bloom without flower, galloping without the horse, the spirit of the thing without the thing, location without dimension, without a within, song without throat, word without ink, wingless flight, dark boat in the dark night, shine without light, pure velocity, as the hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail and the nail is a nail when it meets the wood and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking, hand of the mind, hand of the emperor, arm of the empire, void and vessel, sheath and shear, and wider, and deeper, more vast, more sure, through silence, through darkness, a vector, a violence, and even farther, and even worse, between, before, behind, and under, and even stronger, and even further, beyond form, beyond number, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as winter, as water, a shift in the river, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to the task, a fountain of gravity, space curves around me, I thirst, I hunger, I spark, I burn, force and field, force and counterforce, agent and agency, push to your pull, parabola of will, massless mass and formless form, dreamless dream and nameless name, intent and rapturous, rare and inevitable, I am the thing that is hurtling towards you...

The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (ii)

I am the hand that lifts the rock, I am the eye that sees the worm, I am the mind that strings the worm and throws the line and feels the tug, the flex in the pole, the key in the lock, as the root breaks rock, as sunlight streams across the plain to make the world visible again, foot by foot, I find the groove, the trace in the thicket, seed to flower to fruit to seed, a holy pilgrim moving through the stations of the yardstick, I track, I follow, a flashlight, a crowbar, I find the fulcrum, I hinge and turn, a simple machine, frictionless and efficient as an equal sign, I manifest, votive and incandescent, shrinking the space between here and there I become the future, as drowsiness overcomes the dreamer, as the eye of the archer is the eye of the target, I flip and fold, I superimpose, the letter delivered, the year decembered, I become location, plum pit and apple core, I am motionless and you veer towards me, the eye to which you are relative, single point, silent witness, there to your here, I decide and calibrate, magnetized for your revelation, the doors burst open, I am your outcome, the verb in the sentence, intransitive, end of the road, hook and bait, polestar and checkmate, time and space as I observe them serve me like gravity, lamp to your moth, dot to your map, home and heart and hearth, a selfishness, submit, surrender, I am your arrival, there is no refusal, we are here, you see, together, we are already here...