ISSUE: Spring 1986
haunts the best loved,
half the true body
missing most of the time.
The way we walk
alone, molding the air
before us, cradling each other
in our empty arms.
half the true body
missing most of the time.
The way we walk
alone, molding the air
before us, cradling each other
in our empty arms.
2
How deeply can you search
a wound, and still call it healing?
Making love, we say. As if
we could take it in our hands
and craft it, lovingly, the way a potter
tastes the clay for salts, runs wet hands
along a rim. And isn’t the beauty
most in the flaws, in the bend
of the bowl’s resistance?
Which is why
I want to understand
your story,
3
which is why I want you
to hear mine. Listen:
against the white wall, a spray
of small exotic lilies, bought
to fill the space where you
are not, casts a Zen silhouette.
I couldn’t have arranged them
like that. Do you see? How carefully
they cup their shadows?
How quietly
they heal the air
they pierce.
