Elegy for Matt
The body is
conduit
is therefore
conducive
conductive
channels tides
into
the sluice and slough
organs
of desire
of that which wishes to be
carried on
passed on
not remarked upon
it glides
gilds
guides the hand into each
other’s hands
we are passed this way
and live
this way onward
The body
comes down from hills
follows
the creek which
carries its own
wind
and road
it is always on roads
we find ourselves
always on roads we find
ourselves dying
Look how many dead
each day
lie in our roads
I say in not on
as road is our river now
caught
like leaves
in the undercarriage
think
you may have crossed
the bend
or glanced at the shoulder
where
you will die
or did
as Matt did passing
a place
made emblem
made
holy
made whole now we shall go
there
and keeping close
this knowledge
might lay our flowers
there
at the foot of the hill
might bow there
as this is the place where one is thrown
from the body
or a star
gone
supernova
exploded outwards
we can see this
being
sensitive
hearing the long hiss
rain
under tires
listen close
leaves under axle
Here
incredibly you followed
the path
of a glacier
pulling back the land as one
tugs
a blanket to the chin
before
night truly sets
its foot
at your throat
You might hear
as I have
camped in the evening beside a river
voices
of fishermen
in the willows
and gone to find them found
nothing
there is only river now
you find
it was always river talking
to itself
I found in my mind
a gravity
uninterrupted
a grief
moving forward to the glaciated
turn
creek murmur
highway sigh
and imagined flowers there
already
imagined I would go
home
to where Matt was born
and died
which is to say born
in me
now that he has awakened
and opened
my eyes
which must be why we leave
flowers
among the alluvium
daisies
day’s eyes
bits of broken
glass
along the shoulder
shining
Sean Patrick Hill is the author of the chapbook Hibernaculum (Slash Pine Press, 2013), as well as two full full-length books of poems, Interstitial and The Imagined Field. He is the editor and curator of Green Fuse Press in Louisville, Kentucky.