After All

After Reading, "Thinking, Tangling Shadows".

Neruda’s poems are resolute, devoted,
state-of-the-art. Language between
fingertips, softened—each detail,

facet to facet flushed from stone.
Relations, curves of the body stroking
consciousness—

felt line–by–line, a radiant performance,
where we move the extent of syllable,
shiver beside speech.

Because the body invites, because you
can only read the backcloth of verse
inside the skull and the roots of

purpose rise, exit your chest knotted,
and settle into your hands that open like
essential alters in expectation of more.