Antigone was a beached heiress intent
on returning Gilligan to his life
of suburban haplessness 'til the speech
coach knocked off her tongue (which
was never mother) and syllables entered
stage below like steam from Chilean
baths, assumptions chilled as a corps
of Marines building bridges over
crossed rivers. Too much thought
stifles paralysis, don't you think,
enabling mental blocks to walk planks.
I heard the splash, never associating
it with fundaments of faith, the aegis
that sounds like Jesus, forbidden
conclusiveness in the name of a better
response. Drug store cushions absorb
more shock than that; headphones lifted
by athletes contain less music
than foreplay of static, sound
becoming something more or less like
guilty silence. Redeem your pawns
at the door, for all exchange is not
inheritance, these angled communiqués
borne out in bottles hijinxed by ships
that carry human cargo until carcasses
recall Carcassone and history returns
as a mare running ovals, straitlaced
executives turning holidays into hectares
of dubious proclivity, not knowing one
agenda to triumph when waterfalls vanish
in valleys where the air is admonishment.
 

The critic turns to see an underwater shot
of a lovesick whale enamored of the camera-
man, theorizing the site to include ice
and phobic flukes. Where there are differences
between the poetic and poetics we should linger,
as at any baby shower timed to precede the actual
infant. At that interstice everything resists
categories and so instigates confusions that
enlighten or diminish us like soul music
composed by Jews or stolen from bars
by Jerry Lee Lewis, that younger Mozart.