Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Eternity


Eternity is not grains of sand
o belles etoiles.  Ce n’est pas
leaves or ants or hydrogen atoms.

It is the unquantifiable quantity
l’asymtote de nos âmes.

The ways that water can pass
over a stone.

Les chemins des vents a travers le forêt.

For her


She is a piece of water
an unwashed apple, a
blue and spinning star,
a ribbon tied without
hands, a book with only one word.

She is a candle, an origami
flame, all white and red and
awake.  Heavy bread, burned
on every side.

She is a cup of sand,
a balloon, sewn into the stitch
of the horizon—

holding both sea and sky at once.

Auto-Blazon


my legs are broken pieces of winter
my arms the wooden echo of my penitent father
my eyes are my mother’s geometry
all lines and angles and unraised hands
my hands are unripened apricots and
my thoughts are a hungry bird
I am a seasonal color, quietly stitched
on the underside of gravestones
my blood is papal breath
my knees are the feet of my heart
I am an unpainted Picasso
monochromatic, three dimensional,
a bear, a wave, a phosphorescent dream.

Otoliths

In the blueblack waters of
South America, there is a fish
with a rock in its head.

The natives cut the heads
like oysters and with fish
hooks make jewelry out of

the small stones.  They fish
in local markets for dumb Americans
or pale Belgians that will buy
the wire and rock to decorate the heads
of their fat daughters.

The daughter, all blush and entitlement
puts the jewelry in a ballerina box.  The
native puts the money in coffee cans.

And both the native and the daughter forget
the rocks were put there for balance.