Ubiquity

Poppies, Robert Clew

Mid-afternoon,

when the sky is white,

a hush falls over the house…

I fall inside myself.

And I travel with eyes wide

into visions of orchards:

young legs jouncing

between old trees

laughter’s flight intercepting

late spring’s tepid air

our cheeks ripe with may

and plump with mango

our arms hungry for contact

and flushed with frenzy

we sang

the queen of hearts

she made some tarts

all on a summer’s day

we ran

knowing, as children do,

if we kept running

we would exit here

and enter… where?

where the ground is no longer flat

the sky… no longer blue

where the body is no longer armor

but thoughtless reverie

we ran

yes, how joyfully!

and oh, how

we fell!

slicing

fragments of beveling sunlight

fringing

novel symmetries

vanishing

through secret holes

our hands crammed with poppies

our eyes trimmed with dreams.

Distillation, The Second

Self-portrait, Nevine Sultan

Click here to read the first “Distillation” poem.

* * * * * * * * *

You said,

I’m sorry if I don’t

always cry with you.

I said,

You’re just lucky you don’t

always cry, My Ghost.

You said,

Or I’m just unlucky

I don’t cry.

But…

Sometimes you do cry, My Ghost—

not from sadness, but from joy.

And though you hide your tears from me,

I always feel them in my throat.

And I come to you so quietly,

knowing you hate too much noise.