Sample Poems from Migration of Light
Third Migration, Second Series II
The difference is spreading, said Gertrude
Stein. But there is nothing but difference
There is you and your love and your lover
and you; there is the eroticism
of her shirt, her skin, against her body
and your mind being on her, always
Being so close to something, like this
the body of language, or time, or her —
her prime opening out in her, more
generous than the red warmth of hibiscus —
opens that gap in me that doesn’t know me
that forgets everything I do
It’s a mouth, which though mute, speaks
the sentence I’m always about to hear
Dream Garment
Kimono, collapsed on a power line
shed skin, or a bat stale with blood
fruit of the night
A hanged woman
dangles the warning of her body
for all the possible critics
of the regime
This kite, whose memory of blue
has been stolen, sleeps
in a nest of wires
nightmares Orpheus
jolted on the electric lines of his lyre
Lost angel, whose wings are the whole unfolded city
O Lucifer, tonight, golden threads
are pulled from my back