counterpoise

If I’ve smashed through
to one bright, clear fact
with my thick dense head over
all these years, it’s that

my obtuseness does not imply
another’s opacity.

Nothing gets through
my skull through the eyes
and ears, unless

there's a miracle. But if
anything odd
or even
gets in,

suddenly,
it becomes hard and clear
and fits right, it rotates
and slides and slips into
place, though it might
take a day and a night, or
some weeks - if it's hard
and has weight, it persists,
and will slip into place
in concatenative assemblage
as an integral part

of reality: a machinery, whirring
at blinding speed, glass gears,
wheels and blades tempered too hard
to break, crushing ever so fine,
cutting ever so thoroughly
through, and

taking all to pieces
which all know their places
and all fall in
choreography, rising
instantly to architecture

shot through with light,
of some unknown make.

A vast, glass, cantilevered
building flying on its own
huge buttress,

Equally poised
between flight or fight
with an appetite for the former
and chutes for the latter.

All made ready, waiting
patiently inside
at a constant, blinding speed

in case anything ever gets in.

A procedure in place. If only
there were some way

for it to break out, smash
through skull and scalp (straight
up, saving face), win free
in a burst of machinery,
in a blind, dazzled glare and whirl
of blades - out into the world
made so easily laid bare
to its penetrating gaze: liberty or bust

out

from the deep dense
thick hard opacity
it sits within,

in all judgment's suspense,
without one single reason

left
to doubt.

And thence,
finally,
to begin.