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.