San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

David Morck 

Layers

Relive the moments of

a vinyl erosion studied in a Sunday robe.
 
Incredible, wiping away the haze.
Upon us all sit the layers:
Silurian, to Devonian.
 
So goes the detritus
of all we know.
 
An ache, a suppuration –
Read, or seen: itches are the mildest
form of pain.  What we feel without
language, within.  Hearing the rattle.
 
Scratch away the layers, peel back
surfaces, to learn to tie the knots
that never come loose,
a language made
without human intervention.