LiVE MAG! 12 Edwin Torres

TOPOGRAPHY FOR THE UNINITIATED

now that I let myself look for you
I need you to tell me
how to move when I'm wrong —

you know, that place
where I separate
youth from whatever it is I am now

— peel back, inspect the fringes
of your recalcitrant wake — is what I would say
to someone stepping through privacy

who knows how to talk
to an empty vessel — is one answer —
who can pretend that a trail

knows its outcome
a seeable future, ignited
by a spirit's past —

I gave you a poem, it was for you
to give back — do you remember now
what you owe me

a lion cub's albino foreskin
something I can't touch
leave anything alone

the right person will discover when to look
— there was no one who needed these words
receiver matched to message

the nothing facade
hidden within faith and feature
— please, do we talk now

or is that the idea
to leave things alone
until they talk back

let me hit return and shift
before I start to realize, how again
i throw things in spin cycle

before the engine revs again
again, how all this is —
if a sun falls, before a sky claims it

is there someone to hear it
before it lands — is there a shore to remind me
how to hit return, with me in the slip

rightfully awoken — air out the cob webs
the incessant buzz in my mainframe
(note laptop analogy, lets me avoid conflict)

and I love you
in your incomplete splendor
the way your fingers tap — with missed perfection

I was supposed to be capturing a child's flight
but my net has spots
that let in sleep, or so I remember

quiver this phase
the mention of this — in a that poem
who said perfection

was the only web