And on the eighth day
she was diagnosed an Artist,
and saw that it was good
and fierce and necessary,
and went forth creating
like a madwoman,
rattling gravity shackles
to the din of furor
and crumbling towers
within.
(Poem from the collection, Arclight.)
We are
immigrants in our own skin,
flash-fire refugees
who get by with falsified papers,
fake IDs, and forged signatures.
If caught and found guilty
of a trespass
or transgression,
we pardon ourselves
in our native tongues,
language a placeholder
for the names
we were forced
to annul.
(Poem from the collection, Arclight.)
I do not want to see
the face of God.
I want to see her mask,
where
and for whom it cracked,
the causal history of lines and fissures;
want to trace,
with blind mute innocence,
the light quartered and drawn
in Braille, its grooves holding,
without strain or regret,
Mercy’s hidden inheritance.
John Biscello 