after James MacNeill Whistler
an art to be, as
is is to free, climate of
holding pattern, a
felling in ascent,
the rivets of a phantom
gesture, tremulous
winglike hands, a pot
of color thrown in the face
of a spry public:
ash & ampersand,
graven as two ghosts scarcely
there, the green world
rubbled in percept,
a transit of fay pleasures,
their entanglements
beheld, time’s wheel
burnished in ludic splendor,
unwilling to transform
a mallarmean
wave for synchrony, gold crown
for russet coxcomb:
its soul perforates
a falling rocket, nocturne
in fission and flight
Jose-Luis Moctezuma is a Xicano poet based in Chicago. He is the author of Place-Discipline (Omnidawn, 2018) and Black Box Syndrome (Omnidawn, 2023), and he is an Assistant Professor of Writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). WEB
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