POEM
Galway
Kinnell
THE CEILING
I don't like looking at
this ceiling of sprayed concrete
that would scrape the will out of anyone
who had decided to rise and pass through - just as
the
trompe l'oeil
ofjagged rocks
on the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library floor
conjures up shattered flesh
in someone thillkillg ofclimbing over
those protrudillg balusters -
cruciform steel rods baring their row
of sharp crosses along the top, to interdict
the Christians, and make
all
others imagine
being speared and hooked up halfway over.
But I don't want to wake up under
the smooth-plastered ceiling ofmy childhood either-
its cracks showed me the way but did not tell me the price.
A mild-spoken, uneasy man in a white jacket speaks
of Elavil, Lithane, Norprarrun, Prozac, Desyrel, Xanax.
The woman with black eyes puts
the wafer she spirited out ofMass
under my pillow - scored with a Cross,
it will come apart into four, under
my heavy head, when we tumble,
or toss. I want a kiss
from red lips, like lip-petals in a garden,
speaking I don't know what to the morning.
I don't want to
die.
I want to be born.
