Notes on Beginning
Grayson Goga

He knew it was not of
                        recipe like
            human hand but
                        of God
(or the hastener of intuition) to know
taught pain—rope is always seen braided in full
                        and tethered to
                        through experience
(or the anecdotal instructor).
He learned this
too after
years of
looking at his
pink palms, wondering which they’d
come to kill next.
                        He was on
that sofa—yes, this sofa—when
epiphany came up like an
elevator in his bloodstream.
the doors departed,
a regressive duality,
and all that was inside
leapt forth:
                  All that was
the ocean fell to the
bottom, kissing skin,
though, he was not yet
breathing.
                  What then,
was the white luminary
making whole his casing—
the diaphanous shawl
(candied, ripened)?

For a moment it was but
blue—it was release—but
(no) it was anger and it fumbled

out of his mouth as all that rushed
in with apologies through those

sullied fingernailed—it was the closest he knew to feinting
                                                             and the
                                                closest he’d come to
                                                ascension.

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