Report From the Undersecretary of Inquests Poem by Christian Hawkey

Gender: indeterminate. Age:
ancient. Eyes: undersized.
Nose: broken. Neck: connected.
Hair: mostly air. Chest: at rest.
Gender: pending. Forehead: dented,
perhaps by stars or star-shaped devices
such as a Phillips head, although
the tongue, twisted, recently located
inside the right cheek
salutes you, clearly
as shadows salute the sun's love
of late afternoons in winter trees
leafless as the word branches.
I'm awake. I'm awake. Minutes
more a few minutes more &
a face the morning twitches into
movement is blinking. Where's
my war bonnet. Birdlessly the sky.
Blue is a hole in my head you
fly into, whispering, questioning.
A cat's feathered tongue. Its patiences.
Spring. Coiled sources. They pulled
the river out of the body
called today, Tuesday,
did you know her wide, flat gaze
& the way it moved
or certain things move, as if
from beneath, unseen the earth, like
a bull's shoulder must flow suddenly sideways
for a fly. Flecknoe
is his name. He lives under the sign
of The Sad Pelicans, which are easy
to find since their leathery,
weather-beaten distensible gular pouches
unfold with a little wind
as gray, overcast skies. & what's with
I lost my thought. You are
a coy mistress. A jade-gray chalcedony
curtains your neck which is long,
& curving, & carries
like a column of flesh-colored liquid
your head through rooms, windows, walls
made of mist, backlit. Can anyone
tell me who Phillips was. Each life
is a tool. We're holding
our own hands. We're turning in slow motion
held together by a few screws,
this wrist, a Tuesday, light
allowing all the patterns
& how they blur into you, as you.