Hold

Juan Sánchez Cotán, "Still Life with Game Fowl,
Vegetables and Fruits," 1602

I’ll sit and wait for a while, dark sliver of a moon
overhead, a shadow on shadow, a fermata. I’m
at an impasse, the land tilting up ever so slightly,
just enough to wear me down, and I cannot hold
on to myself. Can’t hold, so I’m falling. Full stop.

There is a castle in Granada, Bibataubín: it hasn’t
a hold, or keep. Near it, a rondilla from Cervantes,
where shady folk would cut a purse, where honest
folk would lose their compass. I’m on hold. Finally,
I put the phone back in its cradle, ending the music.

In the center of the fullness of things, an emptiness.
In the emptiness, that’s where the mystics say Love
is: a dark mirror, a new moon. Only I’m not able to
attend, to pass through the gateless gate: too full of
words, of this sadness, altogether too heavy to hold.