“I don’t think one really gets permission to do things. You do them because you have to do them, and nothing else will do.”

The sun allows you to see only what the sun
falls
upon: the surface. What we wanted was what was elsewhere: cause.

                        *

Or some books say that’s what we once wanted. Prophets of
cause
never, of course, agreed about cause, the uncaused cause: or they

                        *

terribly did. Asleep, I struggle to stay inside sleep, unravaged by
heart-
piercing dreams—craving, wish, desire to remain inside, if briefly,

                        *

obliteration. I cleave to the voice of Poppea’s nurse:
oblivion
soave.

                        *

Not frightening, the word
oblivion
as Oralia Domínguez, hauntingly clinging to the sound, in 1964 sings it.

As the retreating Bructeri began to burn their own 
possessions, to deny to the Romans every sustenance but 
ashes,

To all those driven berserk or humanized by love
this is offered, for I need help
deciphering my dream.

. . . telling those who swarm around him his desire
is that an appendage from each of them
fill, invade each of his orifices, —

Neither an invalid aunt who had been asked to care for a
                                                                                              sister’s
little girl, to fill the dead sister’s place, nor the child herself

        Is she dead?

 Yes, she is dead.

             Did you forgive her?

Still gripped by the illusion of an horizon;
overcome with the finality of a broken tooth;
suspecting that habits are the only salvation,