Find the object

My Aunt Sybil,
three times married, three times free,
says Truth is a thousand lies.
Now you go and find the object,
and try your best to tell.

First I find an emptiness,
carry it to her, cupped in palms.
That there’s the silence between
drops of rain, the anti-spell.
Listen and forget how to lie.

Then a pocket telescope
with a universe wound inside.
That one looks through you,
celestial navigation,
to find out what a man means.

Now a rusted pistol, barrel
whiffing of distant graves.
This is insomnia of wounds,
whose bullets, if traced,
show you how deep to dig.

Three skeletons, size of butcher knives.
Those bones are xylophones of dance.
Rattle them good, no poison comes to trial.

A mirror next, with nothing in it,
like dead man’s eyes. To have no name,
honey, is kingdom enough for memory.

And last, words, clasped, locked forever.
Read it. This is my book. I use it
to undream all my darkness.

Sean Lause teaches courses in Shakespeare, Literature and the Holocaust, and Medical Ethics at Rhodes State College. His poems have appeared in The Minnesota Review, The Alaska Quarterly, Poetry International, The Saranac Review, Another Chicago Magazine, European Judaism, and The Beloit Poetry Journal.