See a way of wagging the hand
So that only the ring finger waggles
A ring or its absence implies no significance here
It’s only a way of identifying which finger
And see a different way of shaking a hand
So that the index snaps against the thumb and middle finger
And note again shaking a hand
Not shaking hands by way of greeting or agreement
And not snapping fingers
As keeping time with Marvin Gaye or Nina Simone
And of course you can keep time with any musical artist
And not just these magnificent two
Just representatives of the whole masterful company
And with middle finger no hostile intent
Though the opposable quality of the thumb might relate
But one finger striking two that cleave together
But confusingly cleave could mean to separate or divide

A schoolchild says How many fingers am I holding up
And you say Five
And the kid says Wrong
One of them is a thumb

We imagine that we can bring the world to order
By focusing the eye
And somehow we involve the focusing of the tongue
Synecdoche of the entire vocal apparatus
The entire conceivable lexicon
To match the entirely separate sensory apparatus
Of which eye is but a representative
In order to disaggregate the significant
From the welter of chaos on the periphery
But doesn’t welter already mean chaos
And wouldn’t it be better to register significance
Before the aggregation
But the world I guess constantly or already aggregates
We come upon an aggregate or composite world
And something is significant only in relation to something else
That which is significant stands out
We make it stand out
And stand a metaphor

I wrote this poem when I was 18 years old
And 68
At 18 never a weed whacker had I heard nor seen
Nor at 68 have I forgotten
What functioning gonads are

I’m supposed to be looking for an object
That might no longer exist
The very definition perhaps of a fool’s errand
For matter is neither created nor destroyed
But the object might well have transitioned into the realm of the unavailable
Where it will abide as good as inexistent
And when will I know in fine that I haven’t found it
I always haven’t found it yet
And in any case a frustrating task
The more imposing after years of insult to the body to the brain
But of course the brain is part of the body
But a special part we say
Where matter is transmuted into abstraction
But the liver too is special and performs its function
Many functions in point of fact
Some of them transmutative
The thyroid the pituitary the gonads
All functional as hell
Broadcasting their messages of command and control
Encrypted in the hormones
And I’m distracted by welter and stand and thumb
The object is not one thing but two
My pair of spectacles is not two things but one
I found the object but my relief at its recovery
Never matched my grief at its mislaying

But it was never matter to begin with
Not so far as we can tell
And why suppose that matter comes first
And what is the significance of sequence anyway
The brain imposes factitious order
On a welter or whatever of sensation

What does a fly see with its compound eye
So exquisitely reactive
A pace of life measured in milliseconds
A lifespan of what a month
Human time humans who measure out the moon
Karl Shapiro called a fly a hideous little bat
He was one of those great realist poets
Shapiro not the fly
Those poets who could and did contrive
A concrete-to-concrete metaphor
A manner mock-grandiloquent that is to say
A tone slightly satirical that is to say
Bitterly and doubtless justifiably pissed off
Who witnessed the horror at mid-century

What do you see and what is it called

The cephalopod’s eye they say
Is as precise as that of a human
More precise perhaps given the cuttlefish’s visual display
That is to say display for visual delectation
And eye again a synecdoche
And what of its molluscan cousin the garden snail
With its sensitive retractable horns
So called by their resemblance to the accessories of antelope or cow
Synecdoches
Lots of other creatures have horns
Corniferous may we say
No we may not
For that word means of or producing chert
But lots of creatures do have horns
Semblant in their relation to the head
And not necessarily in their retractability or its absence
We don’t call the spikes on the stegosaurus-tail horns
But see what ceratopsians have atop their eyes
And do snails have heads
Their stomachs are their feet
Or so we say anatomy be damned
And what about our fellow vertebrate the lamprey
What does it see while socketed
To walleye catfish or sturgeon
Synecdoches
And I can’t imagine that the fish are too pleased with the experience
Of fast-appended lamprey

Remember that time a guy walked a tightrope
Between the Twin Towers
And you picture the Twin Towers to yourself
And think of something entirely other
Than a guy on a tightrope

See the photoreceptive eyespot apparatus
On flagellated algae
Synec uh well you know
Functional for steering toward photosynthesis
Evolutionary descendant of the chromatophore
The eyespot not the algae

A hired man or maybe self-employed
Operates a weed whacker
With a effing two-stroke engine
You see what I did with the article there
Highlighting the bowdlerism
I say Hiya
He says Hey
We both bob our heads a little at the neck and smile
Look
A hawk’s feather blown aside
One edge supplied with barbules
The other fluttering free
And from the feather will ye know the hawk
I pick the feather up and hold it
Between my thumb and my middle finger
And look