for J.G. I am powerless to change a thing. ButLet me fool you, sweetly, with my penOr better still, my fingers, and if not With my fingers, then my tongue—Wherever you feel yourself turnedTo wood, wherever a joint is thick Pinned into a pleat or crook, trappingYou in twists of pure human pain—Let me in….
Into the mute and blue- green marble mailbox my dust deserves to go though not for that which I’m going. I deserve to go, and not alone, because I did not sing loud enough about this life, this world. Singing poorly is acceptable. Not loud enough is not. There were too many things I saw…
The war that so many would like to forget, and so many othersrefuse to remember. Thank you for the relief, the rest,for leaving only palimpsestand a little rolled orange eraser dust,and not the xxxxx of a stitched-up wound,when you came to do what erasers do.The way you rubbed out, in one wide swath,the memory of…
Plaintive 1 They asked me, “what do you think ofthe smell of money, the smell of a womanand the smell of the sea?” I held firm.Night wavered and people were singing.The smell of the sea I know, I said,but I am not an informer. The smellof a woman is my purposeful businessand you and I…
Translated from the Albanian by Ani Gjika Here, everyone smokes.In the eveningeach wiferecognizes her husbandby the faraway glint of his cigaretteat the end of the cobblestone street. When the glint pulses frequentlywives feel the storm coming and rush to warm dinner in the fire.But when it’s scarce and lazylike the pulsing iodine of jellyfish on…
My objective is never to touch it. No such thing as a naughty clock, give it Its head, I say, serve The natural tendency to ebb And flow… When amplitude drops the clock Starts racing— Added to which, in winter Ground water affecting foundations of the tower Alters the angle the timepiece leans. Hair drier works to warm the sensor, Enjoy! Now to anomalies: clock detects The cleaning lady…
Lord, there are creatures in the understory, snails with whorled backs and silver boots, trails beetles weave in grass, black rivers of ants, unbound ladybugs opening their wings, spotted veils and flame, untamed choirs of banjo-colored crickets and stained-glass cicadas. Lord, how shall we count the snakes and frogs and moths? How shall we love…
A chunk of metal cubed and spat out by a car-crushing baling press, a Ford, twenty years old, seemingly red, last driven by a teenaged girl who failed to check the oil, a gift from a doting grandmother with a terror of squashing squirrels recklessly crossing the road, and drove the car only to church;…
The solace of standing. Early morning light coming in through the small square window discovers my neighbour’s wall to me, the marks of mould and hand and fire on individual bricks, for these are old houses. Something I wanted to say about walking in the park has become an insight of such lucidity that it’s…
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