After Closing Luigi Cremona’s “Projective Geometry”

I don’t know how the clouds out here
survived. Points are so perfect that
if you believe in them enough
they prick. Each point will leave
a tiny bruise. And lines are sharp.
The pure ones cut you like the starched
edges of grass-blades, it smarts,
though the wound’s too fine to see.
In bristles, they can nearly chafe you
raw. Even here, outdoors, as I stagger
and blink, swamped in this hot mess
of light and sticky shadow, that black
and white headache won’t go away.
The points cling in stains, I can’t
get rid of them. The vestige
of a line is running furtively along
the street. And the letter A prime
still glows in the midst of the elm
tree, while the Principle of Duality
has just flown up and alighted
with those sparrows on the wires.
I can hardly walk, it’s underwater,
it’s all a jungle here. The leaves flash
their bellies, swimming and wriggling
along in unison, they gobble everything.
The best-trimmed lawns glitter
with chaos like smashed glass. The light’s
like acid. You can feel it working
mildly on your skin. The more acid
in the light the more I like it.
I’m going to take a bath in it, splash
this stuff up into my eyes and rub
until the swelling goes away,
then dive in over my head and soak
myself for as long as it takes
to make the dazzle of the last hard
point dissolve in space.