Stephen Ellis

[ Escape Artist ]

My eyes are
forever at

the horizon,
where sun,

Orion, the moon
all rise and go

adventuring
in a cosmos

predetermined
by what they will

do, for
they can do

nothing else,
even as we can

be nothing
but who we are.

The sun rises
and lights

the inner
chambers of

local flowers,
where my eyes

go blind in
full color.

Is the world,
perceived,

anything but
a child’s drawing

of the stars
seen through

the petals of
flowers that

close against
the dark,

rendered
with many-colored

crayons on
the petals of

flowers of
a different kind?

We live in
worlds superimposed

one upon
the other,

and know this
chaotic

interpenetration
as human

personality
that is released

as my breath
also is, as

a wind that
carries such

words as
encounter

the stickiness of
new flowers, who

confront us with
our names

for them as they
beautifully unfold.


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