Were Art Other to Nature, Might Holes Link Them (More Purely than Gardens)?

Let's workshop this poem about the ontology of holes

Were Art Other to Nature, Might Holes Link Them (More Purely than Gardens)?

1

What is a bagel without a hole? In one sense,/
it is a shade of yellow without extension;/
it is a whale call without duration. Sure,/
whereas I would feel gypped were I sold/
an Mp3 of a beluga call lacking extent,/
I would not feel too gypped were I sold/
a “bagel” lacking a hole. It would fuel me/
just the same. Less capers would fall out.//

When I buy a true bagel, however, I buy/
a hole. Dough, technically, is not enough./
The hole, flourless, may not provide fuel./
But I cannot leave it at the bakery. Parasitic,/
it goes where the dough goes. No hole floats/ 
free, however much we may like to believe/ 
that the voids of Pompeiians would remain/ 
even were their pumice cases troweled away.//

Even so, this hole would still be what it is/ 
were its engirthing ring made of silicon, say./ 
And through the bagel I can see my friend/
unblocked by dough and I can shoot pellets/
without hitting dough. I can do so be-cause/
it has a hole. Not only does the hole have/
a causal role, it has a history. It came to be/ 
when the baker fused the dough-strip ends.// 

In fact, the hole shrunk—from, say, one inch/
to a half—as its host ring swelled in the oven./
The hole would even spin were I to frisbee it/
to my dog. The hole is resilient too. The hole/
remains when I fill it up with fingers. Filler/
would destroy a hole only if the filler/
were of the same stuff of its host and—/
or at least—somehow fused with the host.//

So when I stick my hand in the bath water/
to check the temperature I create a hole,/
one filled by the meat that is my hand./  
Hollows, cavities, tunnels—so many kinds/ 
of holes, three-dimensional. In this box,/ 
then, are there as many holes as bagels?/ 
My 4-year old counts 12 of each, remarking/
“Look at the size of the hole in that one!”//

2

But what does my son know? The sun rises,/
he thinks. A fairy took his tooth. I told him/ 
there was a strong chance his Vader mask/ 
would arrive by tomorrow and he asked,/
looking around, where the chance was.// 

So perhaps talk about the hole of this bagel/
is simply talk about nothing but this bagel—/
about the way it is: toroidal like swim tubes,/ 
like bubbles blown from belugas. Is it not/
naïve to think that the hole itself has reality?//

What is it, in fact, but impossible? Just think/ 
about it. It is inside the hole of a swim tube/
and the tube stays still while the bagel spins./
So the smaller hole—part of the larger hole,/
it seems—is both spinning and not spinning.//

Some holes ooze a presence, no doubt. Deep/
in the pyroclastic rock shot from Vesuvius/  
are the anthropoid hollows of Pompeiians/
huddled mid-spasm from thermal shock—/
teeth, genitalia, nostrils frozen in outline.// 

That “presence” might have been added by me,/
yes. But just think of the intertwining cavities/
in caves—the complex reciprocity between/ 
rock and cavern. Or think of a wheel of Swiss/
whose spherical voids inside have dimples.//

This might not imply much, perhaps merely/ 
that paraphrases removing references to holes/ 
must be rich too. Besides, mere description/ 
of stuff, pellet and dough, seems to explain/ 
how the pellet goes through without touching.//

If we are to put “The sign has three holes” as/ 
“The sign is trebly-holed,” how then “The gap/ 
is too tight for a fist”? “The walls are too close/ 
to allow for a fist”? What about “The pocket/ 
in the Swiss has a dent”?—Holes real or not,/   

we seem to need things to be holed. Paradox/ 
results if a spinning steel disk is utter solid./ 
Dead center must be spinning, lest it snap/
from the adjoining steel. Yet it must be fixed,/
orbiting no center, if it is indeed dead center.// 

3

Fill it with anything—say, a plug of silicon/ 
perfectly matched to the inner topography/ 
of the bagel—and its hole remains. Filler/ 
would destroy the hole only if the filler/ 
were the same dough of the host and—/
or at least—somehow fused with that host.//

It seems, then, that a hole is simply a marker/ 
of rupture: rupture from one stuff to another,/
rupture in space, time—rupture of some sort:/ 
clean, fuzzy. Any sort? What counts as a hole/
is relative, then. From one stance, the dough/
of the bagel is a hole, a hole in the World-All.

* This poem originally appeared in The Gambler (2016).

Photo Credit: unsplash.com/@rodlong