In the Lateness of the World by Carolyn Forché

Author:Carolyn Forché [Forché, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

THE GHOST OF HEAVEN

1.

Sleep to sleep through thirty years of night,

a child herself with child,

for whom we searched

through here, or there, amidst

bones still sleeved and trousered,

a spine picked clean, a paint can,

a skull with hair.

2.

Night to night:

child walking toward me through burning maize

over the clean bones of those whose flesh

was lifted by zopilotes into heaven.

So that is how we ascend!

In the clawed feet of fallen angels

to be assembled again

in the workrooms of clouds.

3.

She rose from where they found her lying

not far from a water urn, leaving

herself behind on the ground

where they found her, holding her arms

before her as if she were asleep.

4.

Blue smoke rising from corncribs, the flap of wings.

On the walls of the city streets a plague of initials.

5.

Walking through a firelit river

to a burning house: dead Singer

sewing machine and piece of dress.

Outside a cashew tree wept

blackened cashews over lamina.

Outside paper fireflies rose to the stars.

6.

Bring penicillin if you can, you said, surgical tape,

a whetstone, mosquito repellent but not the aerosol kind.

Especially bring a syringe for sucking phlegm,

a knife, wooden sticks, a clamp, and plastic bags.

You will also need a bottle of cloud for anesthesia:

to sleep like the flight of a crane through colorless dreams.

7.

When a leech opens your flesh, it leaves a small volcano.

Always pour turpentine over your hair before going to sleep.

8.

Such experiences as these are forgotten

before memory intrudes.

The girl was found (don’t say this)

with a man’s severed head stuffed

into her where a child would have been.

No one knew who the man was.

Another of the dead.

So they had not, after all,

killed a pregnant girl.

9.

That sound in the brush?

A settling of wind in sorghum.

10.

If they capture you, talk.

Talk. Please, yes.

You heard me the first time.

You will be asked who you are.

Eventually, we are all asked who we are.

All who come

All who come into the world

All who come into the world are sent.

Open your curtain of spirit.

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