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54. The Gulf Stream
Something drives us, it’s true, this stream of air
that makes our bolide race along the freeway—
Whose lips release it? Where does it lead?
Who guides it in the dead of night, this discourse
dispatched in darkness opened by our tongues,
with one clear sound turning its lock, finding
its law of increase? When we skim along
the wrong surface of night, of language, someone
fixes our commas. Someone guards the pulse
of April, of these strokes that can cut through
the inky depths. Which law commands the sea
to rise and which preserves the body as
in amber? Superstitiously I make these marks,
an offering for you, for air, for fire.