His smell: December leaves
smoldering, shed feathers
in wet places drying, old rooms
unopened, and the sea:

dreaming and drowning in sand.

The Devil plays
(in salt), the Devil splays
(in a cove beneath the bend
where the waves spray songs) asking:

“can't you see the beauty
in what's been left behind?”

Every particle belonged
to something once – remainders
remain and His lips,
swollen in salt, remind us:

even God can't divide by zero. And

We're all spilt milk,
and the sea's ink is our own:
tinted, we play solitaire
in chorus, chromosomes
in courtships pretending

to play by rules: always
falling inward, the outward-falling
tide – just enough gravity
to almost keep us in pace
with the inertia

that almost keeps us in space:
a little lost with every orbit
and after billions of years
the end result is just
another revolution – tell me:

when was the last time
we overthrew anything?

There was a time
when the Devil in me
preserved in salt
could count every cell
you ever occupied –

every cell in every organ
you deployed against the world:

every aggregate you ever were
was fascinating to me
even as your armies
rallied against me:
I'd rather have been the Devil you hated

than the Devil you ignored.

12/27/2009

Posted on 12/28/2009
Copyright © 2024 Richard Paez