Quartet for the End of Time
After T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”
1
If you play me then you
Play yourself. That was
All the dead needed
To say. To get the better
Of time, we got better
With time. I left my body
And took on the look
Of a man. I made him
An honest woman.
A diagram of this
Sentence builds a
Structure made from
Wind. Inside of that
House is a box. Inside
The box is the head
Of a goat. Inside the
Goat: a knife’s quiet
Song. The blade of
Desire is the silver in
My teeth. My mouth
Has a certain ring to it.
2
I will take you now to after-
Life’s kitchen, where the salty
Girls cure meat with their tears.
Only through time is time
Conquered. Come correct.
Come prepared to sit at the table
Of contents. We bow our heads,
Count our blessings like
Little pigs, while the king-
Fisher waits for a shaft of
Sun. Sprint, said the bird,
For the foothills of truth.
Stop, stop, stop, said the bird,
There is mischief afoot. Then
We sat and ate with our hands,
An entire field of wild thyme.
When asked to choose a hill
To die on, we wanted to kill
The bird. To reconcile our pain
We made the stars into a bear.
Myth made all the difference.
3
If your wrist holds a five-
Nailed star, clock the T.
Who can open the door to night
And not see themselves in black?
Not I. For thousands of years,
I have sat on a milk crate.
Stationed at the crossroads, I sing:
Bone. Bone. Bone. Bone. Bone.
I don a yellow jacket and fox-
Gloves to push out the sun.
The morning is such a production.
A ghost—aghast at the sound
Of singe, a crowned knot of fire.
There is no sense to be had
In the country of our making.
This language a garden
Of strain. No limit
Soldiers, we marched
To the drum of empty
Cups and if a spoon fell
A woman was cursed.
4
When I was sold
Down the river,
God set down his book
In the shape of a tent.
That day I was born again,
My limbs—American letters.
The stairway to heaven is
Yellow-boned legs, antiqued
In their quadroon rust.
At the gate to eternity,
A lawn jockey grins, wide
As the science of mercy.
In his hands a badminton
Racket. He swats and we
See how they run, how
Crickets gallop in the
Dark like horseflies.
Heaven is a thousand
Chandeliers, every crystal
A single body, each head
A grizzly sparkle.
