May Poet Nancy Botkin

The Next Infinity

I.

All that talk about Jesus pointing to God

made us lighter. Or was it the horizon

stretching in every direction as we left church

and caravanned to the little country cemetery?

Or perhaps it was seeing the tractor’s giant

wheels rolling over the fertile earth.

At first the rain fell like feathers

on the silver casket.

That was one infinity,

and we had to step over its broken glass.

II.

A violent storm of ash buried Pompeii.

We walk over the rubble

and pause to admire the frescoes

adorning the doors in the brothel.

Doors

lead to other doors,

where stark light

cuts in jagged halves.

We shield our eyes but hold that infinity close.

III.

Rise from the anesthesia.

into a buzzing fog. No clarity

just babbling

and involuntary tears.

Whimper It’s cold, so cold.

Doctor, how often do we change the gauze?

The water beneath that infinity is cold and you’ll come up begging.

IV.

For anyone who’s ever felt starved,

or brittle, or dreaded a day without parabola,

embrace infinity’s echo, like shallow

breath, or darkness in the pit of forever.

V.

Stick a bookmark in this infinity

and come back to it after

the dark red claw of passion leaves its mark.

Beautiful terror of a radiant half moon.

Beautiful emptiness of a silent piano.

Beautiful telescoping of a tongue

where innumerable stars wink

along the untamed ocean of flesh.

Impossible to avoid all the broken glass

hidden in the sand, but carry on dancing.

Carry on fumbling in the dark

as if no candles could be had,

for who can resist a violet night?

Who can resist singing just one note

when the lightening

is so white, so gold,

so white-gold?

VI.

An autopsy of infinity would uncover a bare, stripped down field.

VII.

What defines your next to nothing?

The prayer, the hymn, or the ashes in the box?

Maybe the wind that streams over the tilled field.

Just a little anesthesia, please.

Undress the story, and place an *

over each unstressed syllable.

The next infinity will burn out like a super nova.

Its buzz will be low, and distant like a spectral heart.

Beneath the quiet, earth.

Beneath the shut eyes,

a kind of darkness

that sparks

another darkness,

and that darkness

is infinite.

"Geometry": 

First appeared in Poetry East, and then included in my collection Parts That Were Once Whole (Mayapple Press).

(Also reprinted in Ted Kooser's column "American Life in Poetry.")

"The Next Infinity":

First appeared in Eclipse and then included in The Next Infinity (Broadstone Books).

"Right Angels":

First appeared in Poetry East and then included in The Next Infinity.

"Love is Blue"

First appeared in Cimarron Review and then included in The Next Infinity.