Joan Floating

Joan Floating

Burners turned herky-jerky,
the berserk motion of drunks--
From what basin do these waves, a sea,
accelerate? My arms, sails, winding
around masts, take flames leeward
then shelter the hush, astonished
by what oranges, topaz, bejewelled gusts
bleed up blue...
How anguish is just relative,
indigenous to such dancing that eats,
chafes, dazzles sweat's fever.
To where is it blazing? Not
liquid bronze, this garment of flesh,
a collection of swathes presently
darkened in succession
'til only bones would resemble gold
if their char's ever washed away.
So, billowing, I smoke, float,
a swooshing of voices now crackling
their wireless to root reception in place:
There, cloud gauze, adrift, betrothing
Juno to her essence, a sea gull's cry
wheeling circles somewhere painless
and above