Three Poems: ‘Albert Wesker’ & ‘Experimental Facility’ & ‘To Piers’
Joseph Spece
Albert Wesker
Redoubtable. Man about and meant to winnow. You are not
the first to call me dashing. Was child with rare marks, was
assistant, was chief. At which time the copter downed. Set a-
bout the house with brood. Arklay and resemblance; Birkin;
Spencer; once there was a scar. These are recollections.
Trouble came; duly, I manufactured ease. Time spent thinking
between plot and make. Otherwise: bomber, ship deck, nurse
to govern needle. Often I permit myself reverie—Wesker
yarn is writ in steel. Colored black-purple. Did I mention re-
doubtable. Hindrance is a species of vex to which I apply the
most crushing pummel. Take note. Those who escape me are
drawn back to finish the business that binds us; my line is lit
with finish. It is in your best interest to assist me.
Experimental Facility
Many levels to her,
and the plants
kept watered by
automaton springs.
Unlike local structures, steel,
glass; the alloy vaults
are abbey nods. Light
is spectral
from a blotted sun.
The black lake
is a lathe—
more oil now than drink,
her churning solvent
hews the fish
to blocks, no fin.
I mistook
a shark
for kindling.
A floating boom
brought me here,
past cement
and casing,
and surely
the rig workers
were right men
to wave me away.
The regular heave
of her dynamo,
the armature therein;
that blackguard blazonry;
these are the calls
for one desirous
and undiscerning.
To Piers
Piers, explain utility to me, since that is warring’s trade: is it a belt of munitions?
a splint? scarf to save the mouth from sand?
Utility taught you to stand down, to ball your socks tightly at the bottom
of a rucksack. There are manuals.
Were there senses, Piers, for which manuals could not make surrogate?
You would say: No.
I wonder after those papers, then, that built in your violet heart
the maths of reparation, of no medic, of willing oneself across a tanker floor with one
arm in ribbons. Of downing the drink that made you a monster, finally, for more
than martial honor.
It won’t be found; in all the several seas, my tour ends / diminished
For your valor / diminished
For your face / diminished
and then grown impossibly large: some electricity still blooms out from the
sawed-off bone, the tendon-wire in you, pullulates to the small circuits of
memory that light here:
Tell, Piers, of papers. Deed has a being too colored to compass.