Death of the Pendulum

Joan Miró, Painting (The bottle of wine), 1924

it was a lizard that exhaled the fumes, 
i was certain of it, and shrunk the eye 
of the morning like a melted rainbow
—but someone had propped up the 
mouth—with the arms of a 
stilted bird or an inverted river 
made of frowns that 
poured out secrets like 
whispers from a fountain

	we are each prisms for the infinite,
	it cried, rockbottom bouquets of 
		fairy dust and lightning
	the crystal skin that beats beneath the 
		brow of every sun

to which we kissed each other madly
and pinched the wings from 
	plastic butterflies
our papered yellow dresses 
slipped off our shoulders and
the grass stained our knees 
the dank shade of 
	wine bottle blue 
that covers the cloth of every nightmare 
like a cool-fitted glove

we were in the center of a 
	three-pronged mystery
the fanatical juxtaposition of a 
	pitchfork and a pink cloud
a time of no time, the death of the pendulum, 
	fluorescent moth
		melted leather sun
			unsung ghost
and all the earth was parallel to its swing 
		
			we remembered 
			who we were
			and the overripe 
			haze of irreality
			—that prism pointing 
			to its own reflection—
			escaped the wrath 
			of the clouds uninjured 
			and descended 
			from the sky with the 
			shimmer of a 
			pink miracle 
			or a forbidden seed 
			papered in green

(the spiritual meaning behind the 
color green is a subtle 
	de-flowering 
of the streaming trees of 
our perception) 

and we curled ourselves like a bunch of 
cool ducks around a palm tree and 
waited for the perpendicular sign 
like a torch at the end of a 
bleeding arrow and 
all the sharks ate apples and the 
jellyfish swam with the doves and 
like the striped blue-green perfume of a
	swollen beehive
the ocean fled skyward and
spilled itself onto our backs
and we carried it
we carried it