It takes a thousand years
to dig out the bounty of the earth.
It takes a thousand nights to learn the ways of the local fish,
a thousand words to commune with eternity.
The plague descends on the holiday port,
young girls and teenagers follow it out of churches,
daring, golden skinned, full of their first secrets
and Catholic hymns—
share your books and bright-colored clothes,
share your coffee and fruit.
This city is protected by moats and fortified walls,
so much joy has been brought here from all over the world,
what shall we do with it,
what shall we do with it?
I know Saint Francis protects her,
when she appears at conferences and in libraries,
protects her every time she walks through the shops,
counting the pennies she has to live on,
protects her from enemies, protects her from friends.
He is annoyed when I advise him,
share your patience with her,
share your weariness, share your joy,
who else can she rely on in this city, if not you,
who else can we talk about in this life, if not her,
who else are we to protect,
who else can we envy,
Francis?
□ □ □
What are your sins, woman?
Who will count the stitches on your opaque body
where veins slowly flow into your palm?
Who will think of asking directions from strangers
whose voices possess you in your sleep?
Who will be brave enough to stand at the head of your bed
to watch you choking back the tears,
like snakes coiling around your throat?
What are your troubles and what are your secrets?
Nothing can be hidden
nothing lost will be returned.
Why ask forgiveness from skeletons,
that lie in the garden
under rosebushes?
She answers, “There’s always
someone who will remind us about each of our losses.
There’s always someone who will not let you be,
who will pull fear out of your body like weeds.”
Autumn approaches. Honeyed voices
and songs fill the churches.
All Christians are united by images of saints on icons,
like pictures in a family album—
beloved and familiar since childhood, a light that accompanies
us through life; the closest are those saints who
took the splinters from your hands when you were a child.
What are your worries, woman? Where are your men?
Betrayed and contrite, angry and hated,
they pronounce your name like some concoction—
which couldn’t alleviate their pain.
Moons waxed and waned in your window—
someone collected and assembled them
like the thick layers of an autumn onion.
She does not agree: “Moons that have waned
cannot teach you anything
and extinguished stars, like the eyes of linguists,
fail to pierce through
the darkness of the world.
“There’s no light, no wasteland, no fires on the river,
no name to remember tonight.
Love is the ability to arrange stones in the waters of the night.
Love is the ability to see how everything is born,
how everything dies,
how everything is born again.”
□ □ □
Women who live beyond the river,
where the ground is full of silt
and the streets are paved with red brick,
wake up and go to the river’s edge
and wait for what the water will bring them that morning—
laundry that escaped someone’s hands,
baskets set adrift with vegetables
or infants.
Water is made up of secrets; you must
be careful or you’ll be pulled into deep wells,
where creatures with fish heads
and delicate tails wait—loved and betrayed.
If bridges existed,
if I could cross over to the other side,
I would have done so long ago.
How can I forget about you,
I see the marks your nails made on my arm,
but how can I remember your face,
if you always ask me to turn off the light.
On this shore, past the factories and boilers, the skies burn
and dead girls in bright gypsy skirts
hover in the air above the rooftops, peering into chimneys,
singing into them, like into old vacuum-tube microphones.
No one tells the women, who live on the other shore,
about the young strays,
who hide every night in the spilt
gold of the apples, watching them on the sly,
as they take off their light dresses and take
the pins and poisoned combs out of their hair.
Whoever finds themselves here will fish
every day, throwing their nets into the mist,
and place red hearts at their feet,
plucking them out of the fish
like tulips.
If only I could get to the other shore,
walk past the cold shadow of the power plant,
see the birds that steal earrings
and little gold crucifixes set out on windowsills.
Feel the dark rise out of the river at night.
And know it will be gone by morning.
□ □ □
Winters are not like winters,
winters live under assumed names,
and unpleasant events are associated with them,
such strange things have been happening to us,
such sorrowful partings, such losses,
such expectations, such returns,
such insults, you want to sort it all out,
but you don’t know which came first, or last,
such confidence that everything you are doing is right,
such unwillingness to accept the obvious,
such snow, as cold as the war,
such sieges are planned, such escapes occur,
such blue trees, such green planets,
such bright hills and twilight valleys,
even when you are not with me, I know where you are
and what you are doing right now,
I know what you are afraid of on winter nights,
what you recall with joy, what you recall with sadness,
what you see walking through the yards at night,
what you hear in each voice, each splash and sound,
what you feel approaching this home,
what you find in the dark corridors,
what concerns you, so later, at the front door,
you nervously react to the smallest movement,