Conference Report

There is an energy within the meat,
and a skin outside, and an expression
upon it.  I have known you first
within the energy within the energy
-- or partly at least, fused
from the top down
to our surprise, then radiant outward
slow as the light from within a star
through the firm core, the calm medium
where we rested pillowed, past the comely skin
to the play of expression, as various
and fleeting as seasurface quickened by wind
or the sun's disorderly curls, where we
tried to phrase some small bit of truth,
wondering: which level?  As sunlight
mobilizes my sluggish metabolisms
through my vehicle's dusty windows my body
is buzzing, I can't tell how much
from sleeplessness, how much from stale weed,
how much from the mosquitoes that stung
me in the empty space beside me beneath
the sleeping bag, how much from the energy
within the energy, what to call it,
how to go.

c. 1990