As if certain algae
that keep islands of skeletons
alive, that make living rock from
trash, from carcasses left behind by others,
as if algae
were to produce out of
themselves and what they most fear
the detritus over whose
kingdom they preside: the burning
fountain is the imagination
within us that ingests and by its
devouring generates
what is most antithetical to itself:
it returns the intolerable as
brilliant dream, visible, opaque,
teasing analysis:
makes from what you find hardest to
swallow, most indigestible, your food.
Frank Bidart
Metaphysical Dog
Of His Bones Are Coral Made
[fragment]
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013©
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