Set your stance,
know what your moral is,
and go.

Stay linear.  
Stay arrow-
tuned into target.
Announce
your target.  Announce that you’re
setting the arrow to string.
Announce that the string is
made just for this and any music made
by the humming string
is incidental to the shot on target.
Tell the gallery that the bow is tool only
and its arch is not beautiful on its own.

Fire directly on the target, flat trajectory,
do not raise the point higher than is necessary
to strike the bull’s eye.  
Do not cry 
for the bull, suddenly blinded  — note only 
that the target’s been hit.  Make this 
whole theater last a set while —
sit back, wait for the scores,

and while you’re waiting marvel
at the ones who hit the target
by pointing the arrow left, right,
up, or down true vertical, letting it fly and then
watching as the music of the bow and string
sing the point curving home
to incidentally return sight
to the wounded bull.

Say,
I could never do that.

Say, 
I am doing that already.

Say,
I want to learn that music.

A movie we’ve been watching gets up,
leaves the theater,
goes down the street for a smoke.

A building the approximate size of the screen
bursts and falls in, smolders for a while
as the movie passes by.

Once it’s gone
the building reconstitutes a few inches farther East
than it had been before.

All the deaths that resulted are voided,
but the people don’t recognize each other now,
even the ones who have worked together for many years.

Meanwhile, back at the theater,
we have barely noticed that the movie has gone.
We’ve been too busy thinking of our lives outside.

When we come out, the movie survivors
point at us, say we’re a little different.
They say we’re a few inches farther West than before

but at least they recognize us.
As for themselves, they don’t know that they’ve changed,
treat each other coldly, aren’t saying much.

The movie, by now, is on a bus for the next state
where it will perpetrate its flight and its magic on others.
We’ll issue an arrest warrant for it but it will elude capture.

It will show up on our late night television screens
and we’ll point and say, “here’s the bastard vision
that has caused all the trouble,” but no one will move

on apprehension because we have come to recognize
how much we need it and its messy path.
We wouldn’t dream of stopping it — can’t dream at all, in fact.