Rees-Jones - Burying the Wren

The astrocytal cells that formed and grew inside your brain following heart lines, speech lines, bedding in, bringing you visions, disrupting your speech, brought us a night that was suddenly known, but not as itself. And so, like a dream about to be spoken, silence buried itself in me. In this new pitch, the navigated darkness of our life, this telling and untelling of the world, Time sped and slowed. The constellations shifted, bringing us messages in particles of dust and light. Together we looked up to the sky as Ursa Minor became the headless bear, the twin sons of Castor and Pollux, unexcellent, unsweet, buried themselves beneath the earth, and Velas sail unfurled, became ragged. Sagittarius the archer, staggered, wounded, ripped his arm on a jagged star, unnamed for this instant; together we wept for Berenice with her one breast, with her shorn-off hair.

And as Time was slinking, doing its business, the fiery empyreal nature of things became the thing on which we most depended. It was a new world, our night sky, and Id like to think the story of what lived between us then expanded in the moment of our looking: charting new maps in the darkness, allowing us to trust that we might live by the light of the stars and their reseedings, those wild celestial fields, which hovered in the dashes and the dots.

And the dark again became a place of sleep, a wild thing cohabiting.

Im swallowing sorrow. No one can hear me in spite of the howls. * I am lying on my back, my legs outsplayed. That would be my dog-look, now, Im giving you, my half-cock, something askance and going to hell, take me/leave me, inbreath/outbreath. Trembling, Im all upturned. Heart-hit, flesh-bound, saying love love in a ring of devotion.

Heres my dogbelly with its small pink teats. Im waiting for the pressure of your well-shaped hand. * Now dogs the divine. Strange thought. Dancing on hind legs, head to one side, and the face of her master. Dog sudden, well-met.

Dog sitting, dog listening, dog running with big joy and ghost dogs on the fields now with her. Dog blur, hellhound, dog shaking, hare-bound; dog in the wind, sky-bound. (Once, attendant in my blue dress, I hadnt the words to call you back.) Dog in the snow, dog in the sea. Dog glorious, glories herself. Dog racing with gleam and thunder. Best friend.

Neither fish nor fowl. Just for this moment, hound bliss. * Now dog sleeps, dead to the world. Dog faithful. Dog tired. Dog whose faint stink, dog-breath, under the dog star is dog waiting, dog at heel.

Theres no one to love this sleeping dog. Dogsuckle, dogwash. Dog with her master, dog in a manger. Dog cradle. Dog holding. Upstairs. Upstairs.

Downstairs. Dog now with her dogheart split. Rough courage. Dog mutter. Dog pause. Words now are never enough. * Dog tricks and the memory of dogs, dogs dreaming and not in colour. Words now are never enough. * Dog tricks and the memory of dogs, dogs dreaming and not in colour.

Dog fetching, dog on a leash, dog watching, dog weeps. Dog fond, dog mother. Dog sniff. Dog holler. God of dogs, dog love. Dog sent to bed in deep disgrace.

Dog shock, piss, squalor. And joy, dearest, tail wag. Dog rhythm, dog riff, dogs domain and deaths dominion. The bodys frames not enough for itself, these pale fires of horror. * Flea-bitten, dog-eared. Dog blood. Dog mess. Dog mess.

Dog foaming at the gates of hell. And, where words will neither cure nor reason dogs here, fur-matted, nose wet. Lap dog, dog of the dead, wide-mawed, tongue lolling. Dog in the dark destroying the world. Dog killer, dog doper, dolling out medicine, taking her pills. Dog bold. Dog bold.

Guantnamo dog in her orange jumpsuit. Girl on the mountainside, dog girl at her bones. * Now Ive a look of something else, leg drawn to my shoulder. Dog woman whose dog limbs quiver; dogwoman and my teeth are bared. A plastic collar might do the trick to stop me gnawing at flesh and fur. Dog alert and no one to touch her.

Dog gesture, rat-catcher. Dog least likely. Dog outstretched. Dog-snout, snarling, hollering. The flowering armpit of a gramophone. So here we are, in the veiny dark.

Heres the moment of pain when the music holds. * Had I once known my dog self whelp, cur the dog skull, dog rose, hair of the dog from shoulder to paw, good dog/bad dog from which I came, wouldnt I now in this stiff chair ask you again, letting things slip, my head resting on your furry pelt, head lifted to the pink of your maw? And how would I know, and would you be glad, of this dog bright pricking her ears? Dog in the mud. Dog in the dust. Wouldnt I ask you not to go? * Dog gentle in the good night. Dog lost, hunkers here. Dogwoman, dogsoul.

Breath escaping the bone cage, faster. Dog refusing to leave her master. Dog gentle, dog love, dog left in the wild machine of dog grizzle, dog slobber, holding you now it is over and over. Licking and weeping, a body cools. Woman loving. Dog gone.

I am speaking/not speaking an unspeakable prayer. And now I am kneeling, dog alone. * Alert in the darkness, head to one side, dogs very still. And then I see her at her own side, waiting. Particle, matter, dog in the moonlight. Trees cast their shadows.

The day hunkers down. From the black leaves of night she creeps, very slowly. Quietly, with her dog eyes closed. Out of blood, out of debris, snuffling, singing, settling skirts and shaping the emptiness, dog howling, dog waking. Doggedly dogging, dog being born. * This slow love as snow falls becomes elsewhere the fierce heat at the core of ourselves.

Dogs jumping up, tangled in wildflowers. Dogs in a waterfall, dogs at the beach. Dogs reading books under African starlight. Dog with her nose now pressed to the window. Dog in the cold. Dog in the dark.