Occlusion

If only I could recall the shapes
of all the cities I’ve visited in dreams

then perhaps I could build something fresh
in this world. A map worth living in,

streets laid out, nerves tapped
in just such a way, gray-black, gold-blue

as these flickers of dark and day
that spread, flayed out like dissections

to be learned from. Here is the heart,
beating—clogged; here are the airways,

the bloodways, the intake and output,
this taxonomist’s wetdream,

thrill of gush and flow and now,
times like now, choked, stopped up

the gash bled dry, all movement
halted

to this frozen frame, all fixed all empty
all flat but for that red light

of eye seeing, that glow of dreaming life
hid beneath, behind, o this halo

of arrested conception.