In the gun cabinet, the bodies you inhabit through your life

                                            stand up like guns inside the doors.

They open, the present, flickering, takes you

                             as if by a chain as those bodies form a V

                                                            behind you

               a hand pulls a drawer by a drawer-pull, all

                             its lit-up workings applying a lexicon

glittering, like eyeshadow

                               inside the walls, as

                a woman in a white dress

                                comes to you in a room

                the curtains drawn

& stagelights beside them

                               (you’re searching

                                                 for something—you don’t know)

 saying, “In the beginning,”

                & she takes down a curtain

                                             & hands it to you

                                heavy & bright

& all of a sudden

                                there, in the foreground

               the person you’d become, in relief against a shadow

the object you’d searched for

                               the word for that

which you had no name

               & by looking, found

a thief

leather gloves

pulled on

you reach in

the drawer

like an eye

your hand

a tongue