The hiss of gold flame

The following poem is by my sister, Sally Benzon.

* * * * *

Embroidered on a Silk Robe
Of Five Panels and Two Linings:
True Conversations


The hiss of gold flame
Won’t be the one of us
In a moment’s boast who hears
Crumpled out of hand
Fluttering from the cocoon
Of fire. 

      Shadow tongues
      On the wall:  Remember?
      Once you will be
      A butterfly.
     

 Now released without light, 
 This darkness composes findings
 Futured into question.

A master-quiet opens the serpentine
To heat agitated and more telling. 

“Suppose, second skin,
 Night is a riddle,
 Darkness  
 Complicit with 
 Nothing.”

The stage whisper first to answer
The call to the scene
Opens the bolts of wings
In unselvaged billows of fire:

There is no thumbprint here!
Crushed by molted eminence,

Seams without naked apology
Second the weave of Man and Woman of wonder:

Talk!  Talk!  Talk!  It is!
Voice into Voice

:  Label  Pinned 
Inside to the collar

Being here undone is
Just the beginning.