Another new poem (in the making)

Here’s another quick poem sans any editing, written last night. It’s attempting to pull of some complex comparisons and in the next few edits it’ll be a matter of mapping out the logic with more clarity, exploring how to let it breathe into its lushness at a slower pace (perhaps?).

XI.

I have never known the four Japanese words for house–
written with ashed underside of valerianella radiata
across the concave ridge of spine, as if soft built structures
in halflight, the oblong frame of a pear conspired
to divide in five rooms at your touch.

Lost for days in the city of plums and cedar,
I will recall lovers separated by the Watauga River,
their mouths mimicking the dulcet tenor of pine siskin,
a call to which, it is said, the Southern heart wilts–

and six thousand mils away the children in Otaru clamor
the tide before dawn, a mother carries her ill son with arms crossed
over his chest, so he might feel the meter of waves.
Here, you have risen early, fleshed anatomy of a violin–

curve of your body outlined by light, canvas,
painting corridors of wood, image of a house in four parts–
indigo, cerulean, rose, alabaster–
sparrow with granite-eyed glance, fur against bone,
suspended cluster of peonies welling in the doorway.

Advertisement