XVI. La Maison Dieu

XVI. La Maison Dieu

Between backbones always the reverse of each other is the thought, phosphorescent
Already, and always seen; brushing naked skin, shifting over tower windows and ferroconcrete.

As if struck with a Diamond match, foundations avail to shake. Dropping your burning splint
Into a glass, the sought-after lever clicked into place disclosing a labyrinth’s crooked path,
Where scarved lamps illuminate a book, whose I spine split; I obsess over not belonging to it
Molding the ceiling type flat on my back. Whether God decides to write it speeding through fog

Insulating both the trusted dark; and the stray lights, not assenting to stable births, befogged

In their own lenses—These oblique communicating branches won’t release me yet, a phosphorous
Match ready before I ask. Rendered like a fragranced stick of soot, I knead without belonging to it,
Pulling the string taut for a tessellated effect, for an overlay of chalk on the mezzanine’s ferroconcrete.
The air gets better on the imitated checkerboard, making it thicker here than elsewhere on the path.
One tinkers and teases, a mitotic spindle sweeping chromatids, or a folding book of splints—

Buried fiber optics fixing the exchanges—Where they had gone, I lay on my bed, and lit a splint—
The final pages, still unread. What I conceive of the match’s ground glass and condensing fog
Around a guttering flame of you is Pharos, and where Nile crocodiles obstruct the path.  
Inescapable as the damp, we forget the Diamond match’s familiar red phosphorus
Contrived with a sandpaper striking back—An undoubtedly human poison in ferroconcrete
Flats among those who exit the wrong doors with scorched mouths—Knowing, not belonging

To it, to guess their occupation mixing drain cleaner, match heads—Knowing, but not
Belonging to the tower—Its aircraft warning lights, repulsive sacred hearts—Invisible splints
Below bind pedestrians; a carriage horse’s feet strikes sparks. That high rises in ferroconcrete
Rock with the ascending air column still manage their prospects—Inhabitants fogging
Shower doors, or leaving disappointment behind in trapped air ducts—Wet eyes, phosphorescent
Then again; perhaps, afflicted with eyestrain. Backs engrave elevators with sweat—The fixed paths

Of each with the strength to endure it. In these spaces, we imitate sunlight to trace our path—
Fatal words that are always present with it—You do not recognize the nameplate; knowing but not
Belonging to the sort to collect a club’s matchbooks, whose name is so terrible—Even phosphorescent,
Like absinthe fountains; it daunts your heart. Beautiful tongues of the flame I refer to jump the splint—
Extinguish themselves in your wine. There is feeling of being mismatched; a cognitive fog
Causing a master sculptor to mistake the equatorial band for l’Observatoire’s ecliptic, yet ferroconcrete

Observatories—Recanting the Zodiac;  its deferred, or denied garlands—Broadcast from ferroconcrete
Towers, until the same wish is satisfied. Until we find our way in that uncertain dark, brush the path’s
Labyrinth of hedges, will I cultivate a tolerance for missteps. Stepping outside in the banking fog,
Your feet planted firmly on the pavement, your hands release their barrel vault; knowing, but not
Belonging to anyone—Always at a safe shore to view our storms, I pause before the burning splint
Blowing across your mouth—An otherwise unmarked Nilometer. While phosphorescent

Phone displays mark the others, half-awake in ferroconcrete towers my phosphorescent tides
Avail to shake, with its chaos of amendments. Relighting Diamond splints along the path; indeed, there would be little talk between us—Knowing beyond the fog, the House of God would properly serve that purpose.