Dan Beachy-Quick

CHORUS & HERO When it came it came with eyes We could not close our eyes to escape its gaze When it came it came with eyes that looked through our lids That looked through our eyes     its eyes Looked below the hair on our heads that did or did not blow In the wind branching out of our brains the sky Gathered in a cave where each one of us says I and I echoes It came and gazed into us until it found itself staring back   When he returned from the underworld he thought his eyes Were the same eyes he opened to the shades His eyes dilated in the dark until he could see in the dark The darkness opened in his head until his head could not contain it He did not know night followed him when he returned He could not see behind him     his children Stared at him with his own eyes when he came home to see them He did not know he was the danger they were in     the gods Put vision in his eyes     he did not think he could not See the difference long ago he notched the arrows he shot   Sometimes we see with our ears the blood on hero’s hands Sometimes the hero walks out from his house with his hands held out As if to ask us who cannot help but see If these blood-covered hands are mine     are these hands mine It’s hard to see in the night flowing out behind the hero’s head If these hands are mine     if these hands are Mine to close mine to turn palms up mine to bring close to my own head To cover our eyes with the same hands we do not want to see Ourselves looking at our hands   Children look through the mirrors their parents gave them for eyes Tears come out the mirrors when they cry The mirrors widen in the dark but in the dark show less The mirrors widen in fear a little door in the mirror opens wider We who gave birth to them live in a cave in their heads A cave in which we watch ourselves as they hide Behind a column or behind their mother’s robes     our children’s eyes   When a force moves through us When our arms act because our minds command them When our mind obeys our eyes     but our eyes Are not our own eyes      when we see as we are forced to see When the command comes from the gods hiding inside the eye Replacing our eyes with a vision We do not say I     we say we     we say we did this     we did This act     and when it’s worse     when it’s my hands When these hands are mine     we don’t say we We say it     we say it came upon me     a force none could resist Soul or breath     god or madness     it acted in me It came      and when it came it came with eyes       - - - - - -

Dan Beachy-Quick is the author of four books of poetry, most recently This Nest, Swift Passerine. He is also the author of the a collection of interlinked essay on Moby-Dick, titled A Whaler's Dictionary, as well as the chapbook Apology for The Book of Creatures. He teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Colorado State University.