Stand in. The map is not the territory.
So we have been told. Have you
entered by the door and walked
within? Roses carved into a wooden
screen, the painting of the saint.
The speech is not the writing—
scratches on the floor of the chicken-yard,
the glide of the pen over the page.
A sheet covered in babble or even less,
letters formed for their own sake.
You step down into the paper and the mountain.
The cuneiform you don’t speak makes up
the tissues of your skin. The blueprint
is (is not) the house. A monster—maybe
just a painting of a monster—the words
passing over your body. Scratches raised like keloids.
The rose is Mary; the statue is the saint.
The line is not the boundary and the cabinet is not
the tomb (the pyramid, the mastaba, the guidebook,
the grave, the story of the grave). Mystery
plays: the transfiguration
of the saint’s deliverance.
The writing overlays the wax,
the graphite and the ink and scratch
of parchment: the buttress and the gibbering.
Make unto your body a canvas for god
to slip over the wounds and the words.
–
Tristan Beiter is a queer poet and speculative fiction nerd originally from central PA. His poetry and criticism have appeared in such venues as trilobite, Strange Horizons, Bird’s Thumb, and Abyss & Apex. When not reading and writing, he can be found doing fiber crafts, constructing absurdities with his boyfriend, or shouting about literary theory.