Tzadhe

Lately, I’ve been talking with friends about the ghost poem.
The poem behind the poem.
As opposed to the poem in front of the poem.
The next poem and how
we get there. Not the last poem
we wrote but the shards and silences we refuse or refute
from the poem we’re writing.
Or I suppose         in any case I’m talking—
which doesn’t necessarily suggest
I am living—about spatial and corporeal metaphors.
Or we could redeem the project. Hope to declare.
‘Without the reality of the naked
word the spirit is a ghost.’ At times
we must restrain (retrain) ourselves
so that others can flourish.
Though I’m still feeling guilty.
About enacting divisions. See. Also. Given
gifts. I am charmed. I am sure. Since.
I accidently tripped
head long into a hermeneutics of suspicion.
And now I am suspect. And which precedes or proceeds
love. I am not sure. As in yesterday I was filling the bathtub
with words when suddenly
I thought to thank you. For making the hidden present.

My problem is that I refuse to write
about stillness. OK—I have multiple. Too. I bought
flowers. The other day. Grown in ash
on the side of volcano in Columbia
and thought I could feel the world turning. A bouquet of daises
and calalilys and roses we split
and pared into smaller and smaller mason jars. And even
here I am oblique—I strain
since stillness is a derivation. Is it kindness. Generosity.
Not to look
into. Or truth to believe
in hidden potential. Hidden tzaddik within.
Of which we are custodians. We should be so lucky. I am
a substitute. My inner
numbers. My indwelling dwindling. 
‘Ninety thousand danced before the holy ark
when King David brought it to Jerusalem.’
My daughter leaps up from the bathtub with water rolling down
from her ever uncut hair words dripping with delight     and says
I am a chandelier. What light. When there is light.
What do you brighten for us to see.
I hope for darkness in the places where I pray. But let’s talk
about some other abstractions. Justice is here
somewhere batting .279 with homerun power
or flowing like a mighty stream.
My daughter speaks her inner logic if someone threats you
you threat back. (Clear the benches for a brawl.) And sometimes
preemptively
and a bit more jocosely
but still syntactically    if you joke me I’ll joke you.
Are we already here. Then     The other side of otherhood.
The other side of the long arcs too long bending. No.
So. Call out. In your way. Let it ring. Or. Ring.

DANIEL BIEGELSON

Daniel Biegelson is the author of the forthcoming book Of Being Neighbors (Ricochet Editions) and the chapbook Only the Borrowed Light (VERSE). He currently serves as Director of the Visiting Writers Series at Northwest Missouri State University as well as an editor for The Laurel Review. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from DIAGRAM, FIELD, Interim, Mid-American Review, RHINO Poetry and TYPO, among other places. Find him at danielbiegelson.com