Monday, May 28, 2012

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.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

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.