Poetry

It was one of those things you just have to believe to see. Let’s call him, Kenneth— yes, Kenneth Oboto— sitting statue still, no, say: still as machete death— in a silk, leopard-skin tutu blouse and skullcap, Parade Magazine in hand— on a green-slatted Iowa City park bench, day-one, freshman orientation— like a beautiful, black-eyed…

Thief of the corn, patch of night against a perfect sky, I see you there watching me with your strange eyes.     What message do you bring me? When the leaves fall you’ll be all we have left. Perched above the cemetery walk, you add your two cents’ worth     when he reads the part…

translated by Jonathan Galassi Desire for your bright hands in the half-shadow of the flame: they smelled of oak and roses; and death. Ancient winter. The birds out foraging seed were suddenly snow; like our words. A little sun, an angel’s halo, then mist: and the trees, and us made of air in the morning.

To Spain, and not a single day of awe there. The Spanish swans lifting from the river: no ripples. To sit in a spring whose waters offer no prophecy. The not-expected. No one reading your mind. No stopping the light inside the beast from crumbling. Long ago, a fog came to settle on a low…

translated by Jonathan Galassi Ravager of lethargies and sorrows, night; safeguard against silences, the age of offhand sadnesses re-buds. And I see boys in me still slender-hipped, on the shells’ slope turn anxious at my changed voice.

Summation: It was deliberate. We had to burn our barn, let our harvest go. Precipitations: Mama lost the baby, Father did not come back from town. The chestnuts failed again. We were distressed. Particularly lost. At winter’s eager edge. The Process: We bemused ourselves. Considerations: We could not: leave Mama alone with her cavernous dry…

translated by Jonathan Galassi Choked with white and black roots, cut by the waters, the earth smells of ferment and worms. Sorrow of things I don’t know is born in me: one death is not enough if time and again now the sod weighs its grass on my heart.

road sign at the edge of town A blue part that is remembered, not a member of the class of prosthetic memories but still a leg up, a boost giving a glimpse over the wall of exile, to a blue that is remarkable and lovely for a garbage can: an aisle of blue garbage cans…

translated by Jonathan Galassi Infernos howl in the murdered trees. Summer sleeps in the virgin honey, the lizard in its monster infancy. For my human smell, thanks to the angels’ air, to water, my celestial heart in the cell’s fertile dark.