Lovesong of the Square Root of Negative One

Lovesong of the Square Root of Negative One

Richard Siken

l am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves 

 tremble but I am invisible, bloom without flower, knot 

 without rope, song without throat in wingless flight, dark 

 boat in the dark night, pure velocity. As the hammer is 

 a hammer when it hits the nail, and the nail is a nail when 

 it meets the wood, and the invisible table begins to appear 

 out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking. 

 Through darkness, through silence, a vector, a violence, 

 I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as 

 winter, as water, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to 

 the task. I am the hand that lifts the rock, I am the mind 

 that strings the worm and throws the line and feels the tug,

 the flex in the pole, and foot by foot I find the groove, 

 the trace in the thicket, the key in the lock, as root breaks 

 rock, from seed to flower to fruit to rot, a holy pilgrim 

 moving through the stations of the yardstick. I track, 

 I follow, I hinge and turn, frictionless and efficient as an 

 equals sign. I flip and fold, I superimpose, I become 

 location and you veer toward me, the eye to which you 

 are relative, magnetized for your revelation. Hook and bait, 

 polestar and checkmate, I am your arrival, there is no 

 refusal, we are here, you see, together, we are already here.