gunshot—but the bang is backwards
bullets whizzing back into the barrel
ka-blam the words on brain, delight
to pain so blasted they have to have heard it—
or at least see the smoke, at least smell something
what I read amongst the crowd, or don’t,
instead ramming them into my head,
making them skate the words like a rink
of ice and heat, until I reel with whirring blades
and seem more real than sense, than what stays
and points beyond me, perhaps to them,
a crowd’s quiet unclotting into persons
beyond me, their distances felt so keenly
through the reading, I’d hear their words at last
for where I am, and stay open to their finding
Across Beyond 