08-28-09
Mark Sullivan
Snail
There's a luminous space
in the world, a threshold
where light from the next room
There's a luminous space
falls into this dark one,
and we feel it when the mind
settles on anything
There's a luminous space
for any length: the bare
trees gusting with ghost leaves
in this violent wind,
There's a luminous space
the staircases zigzagging
up building faces
like afterthoughts
There's a luminous space
of a careless architect.
Now consider this snail
you found escaping from
There's a luminous space
its uprooted universe
when you rinsed the spinach
from the organic store:
There's a luminous space
doesn't it seem to be
a literal emblem
of concentration, deep
There's a luminous space
tarnish of its shell
spiraling into some
wordless realm?
There's a luminous space
Amazing how it stays
in the exact same spot
for days, an inhuman
There's a luminous space
patience, glued to the underside
of a leaf in its
containerized California
There's a luminous space
you've improvised on the shelf.
We debate about this:
laziness, inertia,
There's a luminous space
jet lag from its journey?
What could be its thoughts
or its dreams of a world
There's a luminous space
gathered in inches
through its bleary antennae,
its body of petroleum gel?
There's a luminous space
I tend to think it's all
a matter of survival--
why move, after all, when
There's a luminous space
the safest route is stillness,
to become the leaf's whorled
shadow, hard camouflage
There's a luminous space
swallowing the soft core?
But you're not sure.
You keep wondering about
There's a luminous space
the life inside that spiral,
that point-- by definition without
dimension, so doesn't that mean
There's a luminous space
it is spirit?-- from which
the volume descends.
In the book you're reading
There's a luminous space
on Jewish mysticism,
God is said to have become
nothing in order to create
There's a luminous space
everything. Which is all
beyond us, in our all-too-human
apprehensions. Still, you
There's a luminous space
stare, drawn continually
into this tiny vortex,
matching its patience with
There's a luminous space
your own-- that quality
whose root and sound are so close
to passion, and which Balzac
There's a luminous space
said, beautifully,
comes closest in us
to the process that makes the world.
There's a luminous space
-from Slag
BIO: Mark Sullivan's first collection of poetry, Slag, was published in 2005, the winner of the Walt MacDonald First Book Series competition. He is also the recipient of a "Discovery"/The Nation Prize. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in Mid-American Review, New England Review, Orion, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, and other journals. He was born in Willmar, Minnesota, raised in eastern Massachusetts, and educated at Middlebury College, Oxford University, and Columbia University. He lives with his wife in New York City.
