Page Title

8. Stonework

His mind is a lighthouse, and hers a deep

well. Stabbing the distance with light and turning

in its high arc the lamp

illumines a new frame with every

flaring. It stands on a pillar of stone. Sunk

in stone the well draws

distant waters to a clear space.

The light never stops its stabbing, the well its drawing

the deep waters. Others,

drawn by the endurance of stone and the height

and depth and the gleaming, are yet pierced by sudden

fear, as if of falling.

9. Censored

Not to employ the forbidden

vocabulary, I say only that lying

in your arms,

breathing your

breath is peace;

tasting your mouth and skin my tongue's indulgence.

A creak in ambush in your lungs

trips up my breath's rhythm.

Fine surface

etching visible

on a bad morning

draws my eye back over your face's planes

again. Pressed between

my shoulder and your armpit,

cloth captures

your odor;

it hangs all

night on a chair and yes in the morning I take it

up: I smell my

only true and knowledgeable

audience and critic.

Your voice, your

fingers and palm,

that know the mysterious combinations, have released prisoners.

10. The Middle Aged Gypsy Advises

Still she refuses to assign a public

name, she refrains

from selecting a house for this connectedness between us.

Names and houses train and confine

what they shelter, she claims:

let it be up to us to establish, risk by risk,

this web's airy tenacious dimensions,

its branches and plunging

falls. Keep your nerve, the middle aged gypsy

advises; we haven't a name with enough

variations, a home

with enough doors, to serve for the tentative safety,

the enduring defiant pull, of travelers' love.

Continue Third Moment