Terrance Hayes

[from Terrance Hayes's Lighthead, Penguin, 2010]

Anchor Head

Because keyless and clueless,
because trampled in gunpowder
and hoof-printed address,

from Australopithecus or Adam's
dim boogaloo to birdsong
and what the bird boogaloos to,

because I was waiting to break
these legs free, one to each
short, to be head-dressed in sweat,

my work, a form of rhythm
like the first sex, like the damage
of death and distance

and depression, of troubled
instances and blind instruction,
of pleasure and placelessness,

because I was off-key and careless
and learning through leaning,
because I was astral and pitchforked

and packaged to a dim bungalow
of burden and if not burden,
the dim boredom of no song,

I became a salt-worn dream-
anchor, I leaped overboard
in my shackles and sailed

through my reflection on down
to ruin, calling out to God,
and then calling out no more.