Room 112

Room 112,
which once I’ve heard Persians call “Shadr”,
is a cup and a lotus and a rose
a zodiac and a pole
a mountain a cave a dome and a wheel
the tree of life and the one of the world
a bridge and a knot
the heart the G and the mustard seed
the egg, the door, the holy land and the city of the sun.

Room 111

to the white column
ribbons and bread she carries;
a cemetery
of past times, of pastimes fair,
a glebe never short
of puffballs and dandelions.

Room 110

Room 110 is a garden of fire.

Room 109

a cube infused in purple light
and us and all knots unknotting

Room 108

Do you remember
ozone fireflies at the distance
in the darkness of our closed eyes,
the guessed silhouettes
of two hollow casings touching;
a chemical hypotesis
of peace, laughter
from the other rooms, the conceit
of thinking we were something good

Room 107

This one room is a filthy hut,
but there is dry bread inside, and wolves can’t enter.

Room 106

I want you to come to my land,
yes that dry backyard that merges
with the badlands we’ve got here;
to come and move some rocks about,
dig a hole for the fire –
lines for rainwater to run;

to search the dug earth mounds for stones
and stack them into round walls;
to let fire loosen the soil,
heat the water which makes us sweat;

to leave a hole on the roof,
let a wall collapse by snow;
teach me back a cosmology
weed my convulsions away
resynch my line with a death
no different from crop or winds