E S L

 

Since we parted by consensus,

you and I have passed many noons

in politest conversation,

in phrases not native to us.

Our mother tongue––the language

known first-hand even to Shakespeare

before I.Q. and time’s passage

so aptly circumcised the ear––

is all gesture and mew and trill.

Before our destinies were clear

our signals blazed atop a hill,

or like honey bees in the brain

they murmured as we sipped our wine.

So forgive us if we falter,

slipping back into the culture

of tender eyes and lips and hugs,

the not quite forgotten gutturals

of grunts and snarls, slant smiles and shrugs

 

A friend

 

A friend of mine has

died. He was ill a long time,

yet he told no one.

Instead, he kept the knowledge

to himself as if

it were a pill, a lozenge

to savor in his

mouth, sucking out the sweetness,

swallowing the salt.

Now the earth will seek him out

with her wet mouth and

she will taste him and manage

what others could not––

she will unlace the strands of

him and he will go

bare soled with only his name

into the cave of

time––with the high wind keening.

The sting of it sends the earth

careening––at noon,

the sky darkens, and motors

cease whirring as if

the Sabbath came with all her

peace. But for the trees––

all along the streets

of the world, their leaves murmur

in Aramaic.

First appeared in Poetry Kanto