this thread makes me smile on the inside.
Everything said
The gift of revelation has left me
,
and the rut that I spoke of earlier
I'm assuming this line is to establish that you have some familiarity with the imaginary listener.
has me marking the space between hours, knowing
their lapse to be like the give of folded limbs;
my counting
a line drawn through the bark to see if it will move any
with growth. I have learned that any fat on stone,
any polish
should be cut away for the sake of the veins;
don't touch it as they throb, don't touch
"It"? If you're referring to the veins, it should be "them." If you aren't, this "it" is pretty vague.
the butterfly's wings if it is still alive.
You will read this and look up,
eyelashes raising a clear note through the air,
saying
how can it be true.
Why do you think my eyes are going to be saying that? I want to know why you think I'll be so incredulous.
Here surely I have proved myself wrong, wrought
ligaments out of the emptiness
Meh. "Out of the emptiness" always sounds... empty to me. I hear it a lot in poetry, and it's usage here is vague. What emptiness are you referring to?
to string us together, not along.
The time I spoke of will pass; new things, birds
will fall out of buds with their unfurl
Unfurl is a verb, not an adjective. I don't think it works as one here.
and I will be a paradox, the thing
I think that comma would work better as a colon.
that seals lips for the sake of words.
But if I say that I was born, that you were,
The syntax here is awkward, and it's difficult to understand what you're saying in this line.
with mind flushed through body
not like salt through water, or iron through earth
but like breath through a lung--
Too many commas! Aaaah... It makes this bit hard to read, and with it especially being wordy, you may want to break up the punctuation.
you will unknot the comparison with bloodless fingers
and ask for the flow back, for me to please not
touch you.