from Alien Memory Machine (serial poem)

38.

Everything has gone

white
blinding
white

there is no
tunnel
there is only
this

the brain weaves
a strange kind of music
and our bodies
seem unable to forget
the memory of what it feels like
to be properly seen

all I have said is truly a conversation
with light as a shadow puppet
among the living

we can find breathing but we can’t find air
that defective space under which
all our selves co-mingle

it’s in the air between
you and me baby
a special way
of exing your self
you’ve come to understand
the mask as an image
the image as a house of cards
a collapsible organ
in the centre of the chest