Genius In A Trunk

A genius in a trunk with horrifying effort 

sought in days on days, season
on seasons and year on years,
to at last construct a doorway,
a window of senseless motion,
fallen shrugs and sighs and dateless
walks across a universe city,
to pass through those brittle walls.

Genius, filling, stacking,
stacking, filling, packed
dozens of unseen faces,

stacking sense on word,

scribble on type on scrawl

from inner names seen

in a clouded mirror,

from a now empty chair,

awaiting a futureling,

a reader,

any reader,

this reader,

to say yes, yes, yes, you

are the genius in a box,

your trunk of dreams

just for me.

I am that futureling

to discover you because

I see your genius.

We will sit together in the trunk

and pierce paper with inked images,

or, from passing minds, we genius

sculptors will furiously chisel word

and sound with nerve and finger,

and pen and finger, and key and finger,

and whisper of our blood

and coffee and wine

and love.

Our futurelings, seeing all the stars and moons

on our track of discovery, and light

tracing roofs and walls with a line of silver

from our port of departure,

glimpse yellow lamplight flowing

from a solitary window,

above a lonely street where,

at last, their own silhouettes

hunch over a table to scribble ink

across reams and reams, keys pounding

faster and faster

to find an end

to our heart.