Francesca

You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hand,
Now you will come out of a confusion of people,
Out of a turmoil of speech about you.
I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.

I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf,
Or as a dandelion see-pod and be swept away,
So that I might find you again,
Alone.

-Ezra Pound
_________________________________________
A Letter I’ve Been Writing

My love is a letter I’ve been writing.
A collection of words which keep
falling out of me, revealing itself,
as though for the first time.

Or a single rune I repeat,
like the lines I trace across
your body lost in the dark ink
of my mouth: neck curve pools
in the cradle of collar bone,
areola peak, hip crease
cups smooth stomach,
sweet nectar of dogwood
bloom which brings your
very flesh to a shuddered blush.

There are other comparisons I could make:
My love is a line of small
blond hairs which sprout
just above your kneecap,
so modest it could not be noticed
by the casual observer, so perfect
it could not be lived without…
but that I have no need of them.
My love is a letter I’ve been writing;
which I address to you.
_____________________________________
Overlooked

Her glance cut so deep,
One could not stir
To dislodge the fragments,
Of it’s oblivious nature!
How the sun at dusk
Does turn to behold,
Some worthless, fleeting thing.
Abandons it’s neophyte,
Amid the diabolical din of night.
___________________________________
To Say That We Have Been

To say that we have been
Strangers, or lovers-
Is most often, not enough.
There must be further elaborations
Upon the construct
Of these relations.

So,
We extend the courtesy
Of greater complications,
To feel at ease within
This deprivation.

We have at times,
Stood alone;
Together amongst the absence-
Our silence, insurmountable
Segments of sand-
Caught, cutting symmetrical shapes
Into supple muscle,
Which the barnacle banked shell
Swallows like swaddling,
To covet and conceal.

By this, and only this,
We have been displaced
Among our reckoning.
Moved from the center
Of this grace,
By the frequent ferment
Of pearls pried between.

To say that we have been-
So-far-down
A barren serpentine road,
That our beginnings could
No longer be seen.
All of our ends,
We forge from our dreams.

As such is the realization-
We have survived the sinking ship,
Only to be lost
At sea…