Ariel Resnikoff

a space appears in foot
steps dust kicks up the
steep wood ramp in
place of door—it cd be
a promenade if you give it
time, a plank, if not
what the greeks call
“warding off” in beit
shaan lewis reads the
signs off ancient mosaics
the hottest place on earth
supposedly, & annoyed
scalability in dimensions
of intersecting hands
prints dust does its job
obfuscates confused
coughing for laughter
squinting w pain

sweet aromatics un
hinge the metrics:
rum breath betty,
for example, my
cousin rezzy climbing
his lines two
by two into the ark, as i do
melancholy restarts
a crisis spills
open across seven
unseeded tubs, un
seen but smelt
borscht breath aerosol
floods scooches
leftward makes room
recording metrics
for new posterity
rum breath breathe
in, rummy cube
sideburns out
sabbatean seas leave
empty elijah’s cup runneth
under
unearthing
pleats, unnerving
cries,
peppering
prayers for
living
death rattling
curses

some act of radical love
to read this poem knowing
v well you cannot go w
me, nor i w you, that every
person must go alone into
the unknown despite us
all having been here to
gether once