make me a tunnel more ample than the width
of the one I’ve wormed through with nothing
more than my shoulders scraping against
sediment and shale. Make me a flying
buttress so the roof of the earth
holds up and my breaths
ricochet past their fear
of the unseen—
Make me a trowel light
enough for my hand: down here
nights are velvet or animal
fur, flecked with metal
or dormant fire. And if
I touched the flint
of its pewter
to the gallery’s edge,
I might find the chink
in stone, the spring
hidden in plain sight;
I might find the lever
and the toothed guardian
asleep on the landing, the gate
beyond open to the garden
where the moon hangs like a lost-
and-found earring, a sickle,
an ornament, a pear—
In response to Via Negativa: Commission.