In Billy Cancel's The Autobiography of Shrewd Phil something is going on. There is an edge along which the poet walks with purpose. The narrator states: "I fought a bear i liked/it//i rejoiced/with scissors." The poems are diminutive canvases on which color supplants meaning--"clay works heard dumb/shapes screeching." There is no loci or voice just the tattered remnants of a voice. Someone says "shutters i saw purple light hold/an empty fountain square" and "the northern hemisphere/was covered/in portrait."
He washed her back
He smoothed his hand
Beneath the cloth
With tiny pressure
Softened the rough places
With warm water
To a softness
He would touch her spine
The sense of breath
A repetition
As informal prayer
For darkness
Prayer for light
The sky almost a white
Sweet cloth upon her
Present midnight
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