logic at its root
is a medical instrument
::
ten percent of human skulls
recovered from the stone age
have silver dollar sized holes
bored out of them
the bone removed
the button opened
::
the tools they must have used
to perform this surgery were crude
rudimentary
rock made
ignoble implements
must have had good reason
::
the brain swells to twice its size
just thinking of it
::
surely their logic
was a logic of monsters
the way a demon takes
up residence in the grey matter
builds a haunt shack below
the bridge of your nose
& through the bored hole
said demon can be released
from its captive inelastic
concavity
::
the homosexual
since his invention
has been a creature
held captive in the skull
::
simple ritual :
touch the back of your head
imagine an absence
in the solid matter
trace the serrated ridge
imagine what might come
sprinting from your head
if only you had the acumen
to drill a hole in it
::
athena was born this way
+
phineas gage is said
to have had a metal rod pass
through his brain & emerge
out the other side a swan
+
in the film π the hero learns
the true name of god by opening
up his occipital bone
::
every instrument of torture is born this way
every instrument of sound & surgery
every painting & chair & chariot
every ritual & rite of passage
every word & hermeneutic
::
the skulls of fetuses come soft
& in pieces so they can pass easier
through their mothers into the world
the fontanels harden with age until
behold your new adult shape.
::
perhaps that ancient surgery
is less about monsters & more
an argument for the preservation
of youth
to break apart the skull
so you might pass back through
your mother into oblivion
::
i understood this all
smoking cigarette after cigarette
on the front porch
of a man who’d gripped my head
as if he were trying
to disassemble it
it would have been easier
had he succeeded
smoke rising up through
the hole in me
::
after, i laid beside him
in the position all humans take
when preparing for sleep
regardless of age, or history,
of what terrible things
they’ve just done with their hands