Poetry

From here I can see the children
running across the long field 

for no other reason
than
they are fast. 

Apples belong to the genus Malus. I stand with my hips pressing into the sink’s marble,
rinsing and twisting these sandy, gunmetal stems out of the fat fruit 

Forgive me, 
I have smuggled them away
from my father’s house to this sodden pitch
in the middle of my life, their names 
asleep under my tongue. I have walked

to practice intense study. to research. to seek again. to require confirmation,
a proof. to believe.     to believe in knowing because it can be said
again and again. the proving of a theorem.    now the corollary: to have learned

I cannot remember the last meal I shared with my father.
Only those long last nights slipping him what ice chips
he could still stomach and then swabbing his chapped lips
with a wetted pink sponge.

Confusion is the foreigner’s advantage. Natives 
tamp the nuance in their sounds. Stranger 
seeking refuge pockets vowels, picks gesture,
learns body, gets caught up on the cobble 

Imagine you could learn 
the names of every river,
each upthrust mountain
and fault folded on itself:

There must’ve been some incident, something to push both Dickinson and Proust into isolation, the horse thought as a student, but now he thinks time and immortality require one’s full attention.