Lyric

Strike the bronze bowl, count the hundred-and-eight—who's at the edge of the pond?

No mother, no birthday, I sprout in the middle of speech

Seven holes in the root looking up where the willow-boughs reach

I drink down a million old diaries rotting in clay

Distilling the filth into dew for the thing you can't say

You kneel by the bank with a gullet as thin as a pin

A belly like earthenware begging to pour it all in

Three minutes of warmth on a borrowed porcelain spoon

I sort out your alibi under a counterfeit moon

Forty-nine flashes from bottom to bank

A thousand pale hands in a single blank rank

Take the white flower, say thank-you and sigh—

Then sever the stalk so the witness will die

Lotus, lotate, spin the wheel through the mire

Clean of the name that I wore in the prior

White on the water, not a speck on the petal

Rising untouched where the heavy dregs settle

Lotus, lotate, drink the pond through the reed

Opening wide for the mouth in the need

Ring the cold bell, cut the stem at the gate

How many lives till you wake from the weight?

Lo-lo-lotate, zero the slate

One-oh-eight divided, nothing to hate

Drop in the pond, pearl on the leaf

Brief is the body and brief is the grief

Count the six roads that I ran in an hour:

I woke with a knife in a butcher's red shower

I held a wet letter beside a locked door

I swept up the salt on a burning house floor!

Why did the tally leave hundred-and-nine?

One indivisible drop in the brine?

Look at your finger still warm on the rim—

Didn't you ask me the very same whim?

You sever the stalk so your secret stays fine

You kneel at the water and call it divine

But down in the silt at the foot of the shrine—

Every dark bubble you spat out is mine

Lotus, lotate, spin the wheel through the mire

Clean of the name that I wore in the prior

White on the water, not a speck on the petal

Rising untouched where the heavy dregs settle

Lotus, lotate, drink the pond through the reed

Opening wide for the mouth in the need

Ring the cold bell, cut the stem at the gate

How many lives till you wake from the weight?

Look through the holes in the stem that you cut:

Who is the prisoner locked in the rut?

When the blade hits the reed, I am done with the ache—

No cup on the table, no spoon left to break

My petal sheds water and sleeps in the black

While your finger is itching to summon me back!

With salt on your tongue by the very same door

You're the one begging the wheel for one more!

Lotus, lotate, spin the wheel through the mire

Clean of the name that I wore in the prior

White on the water, not a speck on the petal

Rising untouched where the heavy dregs settle

Lotus, lotate, drink the pond through the reed

Opening wide for the mouth in the need

Ring the cold bell, cut the stem at the gate

How many lives till you wake from the weight?

Lo-lo-lotate, zero the slate

One-oh-eight divided, one left to wait

Drop in the pond, pearl on the leaf

Brief is the body and endless the thief

Cut the green stem, let the dark water bond—

Strike the bronze bowl, count the hundred-and-eight—who's at the edge of the pond?