Hocus, Focus

It’s hard to track something

Unknown

I’m not sure what “focus” feels

Like, smells like

How it pings or ripples

The ionizing pattern of its

Path

Difficult for you to teach what you can’t

Circumscribe, define

Display for me to

Imitate

A black box, known only by its

Outputs—evidentiary

Success

Or thrown into relief by

Antonymic stats: it’s not

following a script

correcting my mistakes

obsessing on results

On the few occasions focus

Answered my petition, it

Powered in so strong, it

Swept away all trace

When it moved on

Leaving only pixels in its wake

Backscatter on my soul

Here’s what little I recall:

Beneath my thumping heart my

Threaded breath

A low internal thrum, a tuning fork

Vibration that aligned my

Hand, and foot and

Eye

An almost absent self

Out-of-body seeing splendid moves from

Slight remove

A blessed lack of

Thought

It

Felt

Good

A Quantum Theory of Fencing

First Theorem
I exist
In two conflicting states
Belief and unbelief
I see
Countless possibilities
And hard, unyielding truth
I hear
Everything you say
But know

Nothing of who you are

On some level, are we truly one?

Second Theorem
My opponent is entangled in my truth
Our patterned touches spangled on lames
I see his actions prior to his acts
My mind shapes exactly his attacks
(Spooky action at a fencing distance)
He marches, blade occupying everywhere at once
But in the end
All his possible attacks collapse to one
Exactly where my blade waits
Anticipating future states

I am here now; both beginning and the end

Third Theorem
Aware of all, focused on none
Balanced on the narrow edge
Forward and back
Future and past
Action and reaction
Curious and open to any end
Detached observer of the bout