EON

In the cloud
Out of the cloud
Where in the filaments,
The wisps, is the object
Revealed?
An object slides into shadow
The ground of being obscured
A dense forest of shading trees
The tapering of alleys and streets
How known? Consciousness
Itself an object, the object
Sliding, tapering,
Its light in penumbral darkness.

The mission: Keeping the King’s Secret
Bisected, the outward show
Of cleavage and rouged bosom
Assignation in the boudoir
Eyes above a fan
The lips in a painted pout
Beyond the window
The geometric garden recedes in perspective.
In cold Russia, holding the secret close
Это очень красивая девушка
A very lovely girl…
Alliances forged in deception
But deceiving whom?

Holding the secret, the secret that kept you safe
Among the fops of London
Who gambled on your sex
The ground of being obscured
The secret that led you back to France
La Folle Journée
Forced to dressed in the epicene court
Of curled wigs and ruffled silks
As the woman who was a man
Who was a woman
Bartering the secret the King held dear
A prisoner or liberated
Among the epigrams of Voltaire and Rousseau?


And then the Revolution
The Bastille taken
The streets riot in the name of liberty
Figaro as worthy as an aristocrat
The ancient regime fallen
The Enlightenment shining
But ringed with the dark reign of terror.

Your struggle continued
In skirts with a sword
Fencing, fighting
An Amazon or a dragoon
Either, both
Not reducible to a surgeon’s report.

In the end, wandering through cold London
You hold the secret close
The ground of being obscured
A lesson, a challenge, an enigma
What you say you are, you are,
Or are you?