Instructions for Banno: The Poet interrupts: Mind cast of the bride
Kiran Bath | Poetry
What is the psyche of Banno? If we were to draw it, would it be circular
or linear?
Would we hope to not imagine it at all?
(a skull in need of kinesiology/stencil for heart/ her body a wishing well)
Who is the uncorrected Banno?
(describe the wearer of a face, before they are seen)
Internal gaze of Banno: Guesswork.
(where would I have sat before knowing the ground?)
Banno won’t see without gravity.
(the pulling of his gaze/the lowering of cows)
Banno wears his eyes, offspring’s mouth, mother’s ears.
Can She infect the page?
I hand her the pen and she sketches:
cookie cut Bannos, the importance of symmetry
for compliance and design propaganda.
(essence of Banno: pre-socratic)
Getting to the heart of the matter of Bannos
hers is a language of past life tense,
she must trust cruelty as cosmic balance.
Samsāra — the wheel of reincarnation. She must
entrust salvation to [non-space].
Legacy of Banno: suffer gracefully for karmic returns.
I will ask again — what is the psyche of Banno?
Circular, Samsara, A reflexive verb.
I sacrifice myself. I sacrifice myself.
The programming of Bannos. The cows all sang.
What I kept the poem from writing itself:
I sacrificed myself. I sacrifice myself.
..
Kiran Bath is a writer based in Brooklyn by way of Sydney. She has received fellowships and support from Poets House, the Vermont Studio Center and Brooklyn Poets. Kiran is a Kundiman fellow and a Tin House alumni. Her writing appears in wildness, The Adroit Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, and other journals. Her debut poetry collection, INSTRUCTIONS FOR BANNO, is forthcoming this Summer with Kelsey Street Press.