CLENCHED
She reached her hand out of the car that was taking her to the airport, I took it and our hands clenched, tight, intertwined. Was this the solid hand of assurance, or the hand of dismissal? I wake each morning before dawn my hand still asleep, clenched into her hand. As the car that was taking her to the airport pulled away she waved. Was that a wave of goodbye, or was it a wave washing everything away, even the road I was standing on, even memory. Once, as we lay in bed, she asked me, What is spooning? This is spooning, I answered, and folded her bones into mine.
ANOTHER THING I KNOW FOR SURE
Another thing I know for sure is that Einstein said love was a spooky entanglement. That explains why I cannot stop talking to you even though you are gone. Love is just spooky action at a distance, he said, and dismissed it. Einstein observed love but could not explain it. I know that when the phone rings at three in the morning and I roll over in bed and answer, and it is your voice that I hear, I am dreaming so I hang up. I may be tangled in the sheets but I'm not crazy. I sit on a bench in the evening by the lake. I love this hour I say to you, the way the lake darkens and the sky lightens. You answer, I love the way you speak to me, although I am not really here—I love that about you. I know you do, I answer, I know.
THE BROWN ROOM
You, ballerina, spin on the edge of the sharpest desire. You can't catch me, you say, can't catch me in your net of words, but I do appreciate your efforts. Now I know why you slipped me a book of matches with a phone number that exists only in the movies. The brown room is that shade of brown called Catholic girl's school brown, rosary brown, chair outside the vice principal’s office brown, ruler slapped across the back of the hand brown. You have been bad, scaling the ancient walls around the convent yard, climbing the trees and swinging from the tallest branches. My hands will never tire of waiting to grasp your waist. My hands will always be there to catch you when you fall. But you never fall, do you? The metronome is the only true tone in the brown room. It ticks yes, it ticks no, it ticks yes, it ticks no.
FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH
I thought your name meant to love,
not to carry a burden, and how
did I know today, San Valentino,
is the birthday of your darkest loss—
that three tango shoes still sulk
in a dark corner of your closet
behind the traveling trunk
with the worn out stickers:
Istanbul, Cairo, Bagdad, London,
Paris, Edinburgh? A confession—the story
of a car crash on the way to damage
my wife's lover was no consolation—
idiota! Now I know you have the amber eyes
flecked with emerald, of a water sprite,
that you tango on stilts with shadows.
I swear I would not kill a man over you.
I would be nice to the cake eater
and give him blood roses, thorn-less ones,
to fling at your feet. We wouldn't want
the little rube to get lost among the lot lizards
working the bleachers. Basta così, amore
della mia vita, should I have known better.
Had I not been warned about the red dress
and told not to dance along the shoreline
under a Roma moon with a woman whose kiss
could pull a cold wave over my face?
THE CHILD
I see broken combs, lace from a wedding dress torn into bandages. Which fork to use when all the plates are broken? Do you serve poison with your left hand or your right hand? We do want to be correct. A scrap of parchment, perhaps a message, floats down, flipping, spinning, and lands on the path. A scythe swings, harvesting the stars. A partially melted knife reflects a lavender moon. This is how to cradle the night in a shopping bag. Is the miasma tolling for thee? Bruised memory, how to sigh in fourteen languages. Habibi, let me press this moss to the sky, let me stanch the bleeding. There is some good news, the scrap of foil is not a scrap of foil, see how quietly it flaps its wings once and then flies away, it flies away.
SAINT VALENTINE
Lets hear it for Saint Valentine, although there were many of them over the centuries. Valentinus was one of several Saint Valentines to be beheaded. Later, a chapel was built over the saint’s remains. There are pieces of Valentinus, arms, legs, ears, and of course, his heart, scattered, on display all over Europe and Asia Minor. Abelard and Eloise were famous lovers. He a priest and she his student. Her uncle did not appreciate their union, and one night, took him aside and demonstrated his displeasure by having him castrated. Both took refuge in separate monasteries and wrote love letters to each other for the rest of their lives. She, bride of Christ, wrote to Abelard, let me be your whore. Forget candles, chocolates and flowers—love is dangerous and deadly. Mona Lisa with her vacant eyes, with her thin-lipped smile of scorn.
DARK NIGHT
Can three women share one man? Have the knives been sharpened? Red sky at morning sailor's warning. Can three questions share one answer? I am not so dark, says the moon, you should see how bright I am high over the planet. The red sky does not believe in the old sailor's warnings. The three questions want to share a bed with the three answers. Questions are only slices of the dark, says the moon. The journey says, time is two intertwined spiral staircases where you pass yourself going up as you pass yourself going down. The old sailor wants me to notice how the sea ebbs and flows sharpening it's edges. The knives claim the first song that became a dance was the sharpening of the knives. I say—each night the waves bring you back to me—you wash up on shore and lie by my side, cold and still as a statue.
LA LLUVIA
After a wood engraving by Leopoldo Mendez
The rain wants to live in your eyes instead of tears.
The rain wants to kiss your cheeks,
to nestle in the hollows of your collarbone,
the rain wants to rest its head on your chest
and find its way with you like water
finds its level on its way to the ocean.
The rain doesn't have to touch you,
to miss you—the rain doesn't even know
why it should love you.
The rain does not need a reason to love you.
La lluvia no necesita un motivo para amarte.
The rain wants to kiss your hair,
your eyelids, your eyelashes.
The rain wants to extinquish your ashes.
Note: "Another Thing I know for Sure" is reprinted from Unbroken ( ), "Saint Valentine" from The Mackinaw, and "The Brown Room" from Moria.
