“Reading criticism clogs conduits through which one gets new ideas: cultural cholesterol.” —Susan Sontag, 1964 journal entry

A handful of ranunculus, yellow, swell open.
Morning showers pass through. I make a wish
when the sun breaks free from its shroud.
A temporary proscenium of light forms. I see
motes and ghosts in gestured choreography.
A possessed experience of gods or a trip
of light god-shaped? In rapid succession,
I am mouth-to-mouth lucidity. I breach a crown
of paper tigers. Inside this current occupation,
I surrender in ecstatic objection to a language,
blue, that takes from lust and sells back violence.