Sapphic stanza

These short shores make long, clear-cut lines that form my
day safely. I crave to pass waves, like bowls
draining deep: now, like what we deem quite real,
by cliffs I plunge to sea.

Rondelet

The moon's contour
a steep bowl, or a cycle, now.
The moon's contour
change: we shape it with these hands, place
fingers over our eyes, make of
it a triangle, now a bowl like
the moon's contour.


(Ruined) Rondelet

The moon the shape
of a bowl, or a cycle, now.
We stargaze in our orchard yard
as we shape the moon with our hands,
how we place each fingers over our
eyes, so that we make of the moon
at first a triangle, then a shape after
cutting it, aptly, in half; now
the moon the shape
of a steep bowl.


Silva

The moon the shape of a bowl,
or a cycle. We stargaze in our orchard
yard as we shape the moon
with our hands, how we place each fingers over
our eyes, so that we make
of the moon at first a triangle, then a shape
after cutting it, aptly,
in half; now the moon the shape of a steep bowl.

Dream

I spill my coffee;
I lick my fingers, how
they are soaked in coffee the way
rain soaks trees whose crown gleams,
is glass dregs shimmering. The trees are not
themselves: fakes. The ones I know do not sweat,
do not shiver like bees' buzz, had sound been flashes,
do not seem a lemon in colour, no: they have
the ordinary kelly colour. Now I peel bark
of the trunk. Now not, my hands full
of sap. In my right hand I hold
a peach, smeared in sap,
to be eaten.

Cannibal

Balm me in honey
and wine
because I say so. Dip me
two times, after, in water,
then wash and let what's left
stay splayed on me.
Take a piece of my flesh
and taste it on your tongue,
carve it up
with your fork.

Now bring the lamb:
dip it in honey but not wine,
wash it, cut its hair
away. Slice it up.
Salt it.

Serve lamb and moist potatoes
on a platter with some wild
cranberries.

I will be your desert.

Reverse

What if buildings splay
across the skyline dominion,
if gondolas melt into what
it covers, or stops rocking; what if
streets becomes water
and water streets, if the ground
drops beneath us
and people

swim in water.

and fishes.

rolled and wrapped,
dries out on pavements?

What if the moon becomes
the sun,
and sun the moon,
if God turns to Devil
and vice versa?
Will that be Armageddon?

What if it all
is just a painting?

i pluck a magnolia, just for you

What do you do when I walk through Wisconsin
as through my garden: suave, apparent, notable,
like a gazelle's sashay. Do you look,
do you turn around for one last glance,
for one last wishful taste, then wish I was yours
and go on?

I know you do, caramel-coloured honey.
The streets are crowded but I am as distinct
as the way red steals your glare
from other colours . . .
blue, ecru, fuchsia's bright purple.
When will you ask me out, when will you
have the courage to do more than just look,
then wish, then imagine who I must be;
How I must be in bed?

I pluck a honeysuckle from my garden,
then a magnolia: this one is for me.
That one is for you. I put it here
beside the porch railing, where you should
see it.

Osprey

Parasols, sombreros, heads beneath;
sunburned bodies on the beach. Orchestras
in the zephyr, when they play cantinela

de antiguo with violins and saxophones,
trombones. I lean over the balustrade
of the veranda, I think I can barely see

where sky crowns water as I move
my spoon in the cappuccino: circles, lines
that fade, ripples that quake. I study

my kingdom, the way the wind carries spice
and gazanias, ripe tangerines, the way
the sky burns, color de amarillo

y rojo, at dawn; why it won't stop, why
it keeps its paradise pink colour.
Look past Nerja, its cliffs unfolding

into the sea, I say, to the osprey—
Do you notice the feeling of history
that brushes your wings; of history

which trumpets through the air?