Wix.com - Anaiis Salles Poetry

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Feather

and

Stone

slide 2 Listening Hello, Moon Changeling Detente Untitled Last Novemberslide 3 Listening it is a day for umbrellas it is a day for mud slides along the coast a day for not going to the post office as Vashon slumbers in a tropical stupor some work beckons like a drum what will it be? what I know? or what wants to be found after the flowers are beaten down by too much of what is necessary what color will invent itself under these thumbnails? who will lean into this angle of listening and hovering like a hummingbird sing the song hidden in the silence between a falling sky and moss hair of this plum treeslide 4 Hello, Moon round stamp on this patch of night upon whose face I scribble dreams then mail them to the morning how many skies, countries, windows have we shared watching each other grow bright fade and disappear only to come clear again, rolling through our synchronous seasons we have taken, you and I, the stutter of crickets, tree frogs rasping drone, music of snow falling, the question of feathers and made a language all our own staccato voices of earth and sky playfully correcting each other like new lovers remembering their first embraceslide 5 Only NowOnly now I am as spacious as a forestdo I fit inside this tiny wooden roomwhere I stand, solid and beamingamong the sky's other voicesonly now keening like a hawk heralding a stormis it possible to dive into the silence of a rosewhose yellow smile becomes my breathwhose heart is thisthrough which narrow days passstripped of barren confinement and clown make-upto be made whole like your nameand whose thirst savorswhat happens todaylike first swallow of milk or last sip of wateronly now I've tasted you in a ripe papayain the gravelly gulp of bootleg vodkapaving the back of my throatin goat's tongue and blood of a lambonly now walking alone in history's citiesseeing you in the faces of the poorwill I make good bread at home for whoever comes only nowshaking with joylike a coin in your purse slide 6 ChangelingYes, I am moltingfrom our lives striking each other like lighteninggreen phosphorescence grinsunder the surface of high tidelittle ribbons of regret swim away like fisheslike faces rippling in shadowa snake dreams a river...crusts of earthslide beneath this rooted canopyin hushed tones, bad newor secrets being sharedsmack my face with bright, blue airears search for towered bellsbut this strange ringing will stop the morningtwo days from nowa harbor dreams a woman...slide 7 I lay down in the moon's silver chapelthe speaker within uncoilsa vine in the night, full and fruitedwho calls who to this murmur of warmththrough a shower of lunar mothsfluttering away like open truthful mouthsa woman dreams a bird...drifting along corridors of movementswaying purple and blackmy fingers fan out like wingsor waves of ink making pledges to the skyfilling the empty places between the starsslide 8 Last NovemberI have nearly forgiven youfor leavingjust as I learned to love youthis body, a bow of clarityarches back, back and backyears of taut strengthready to fire into a future of weathered graceaims at transparenciesthe long days of your slow departurehave been archivedby friends who hold on to youlike a bottle of wine too good to drinkwhile the cut crystal of my handspills over with the sweet, dark flavorof touching each otherwith the tenderness of hopethe kindness of failurethe thirst of childrenslide 9 I didn't have the heartto sing to you as you closed your eyeshave you forgiven mewomen should not speak of purificationthis weakens us and we lose our saltI wear your death like jewelryknowing full well its worthI hurt all over nowthe way snow hurts melting under the sun's gazeI know the anguish of lilac opening to a bee's pushthe way can I burnsthe way I must burnsthe way fruit screams for a hand when it's ready to be pickedthe way living hurtsslide 10 I (I Don't Know)I don't know what death is,that shape-shifting thing in the night,the shot in the dark, the slip on the stair,first and last sting of a honey bee,deer sailing through a windshield,break down in the wrong place at the right time,curve in the road where, swerving to avoid a rabbit,you hit a tree,cigarette fire in a bed,blunt force crushing the back of a headthese sudden, singular departuresleave no tracks in the snowa beautiful young man I knowdragged the weight of his deathup the slippery, sloping field of my lifelike our child fatheredamong needles, whispers and tubes,a child I raise alonelong after the music of my lover's laughteris consigned to powderPage 11 I don't know what death is...is it the pillowon which we lay each nightis it the rustle under footas we walk barefoot in the darkthrough the high grass of summerI don't know the why of it...but the how is a mortared stone wallor a closed gatethrough which light folds one way, always away from ustoward a bending, unconquerable silencefrozen and lockedPage 12 II (We Don't Know)herewe are still hereyou and Iblood beating out time, crossed timesquandered like easy moneyuntil the time comes to lose our namescurling into a fixed horizonlike wild geese carvingthe evening's rest in the aira sculptural prayer disappearinginto the swirling, liquid marble of silken channelor cold tide poolif I have one last wishone final fish to catchin these currents where I dancelike a cobra, a cripple,a warrior, a mirror,like a reckless savage loverit would be to bring my death to your armswhere it would be welcome among your ruinsthen this high proud wallwould instead be a crumbling heartand I would glide through the open gate of your eyesborn again in that unconquerable silence,a distance bending itself into lovePage 13 Willow in a RainstormAphrodite's robes tangle in a lovers' knotI dream up the rhythmic tugdull shears in a sexless stranger's handa willow in a rainstormI shudder, weep and wake choking with remembrancebicycle tires hiss down the wet, warm asphalt of Saffron Hillgroan of brass hingesblue door swings openyour mac crumples round the question posedby my hands inside your pocketswe are shades, murmuring, spectral fever-ridden ghostshaunting a jeweler's emporiumon a deserted Holborn streetcutting ourselves free, free as lacewhile London sleepsI don't want to love you anymorein precisely the same wayI save shoeboxes full of fabric scraps,expired passports or stories begun but incompletely toldPage 14 I will pull the warmth of you offlike a wedding ring from my fingerI won't hold you anymorelike my own breathfamiliar but invisiblenor will I recline ad infinitum,awkwardly, a half-buried statuein a burning fieldthick with the dust of exploding marriageseyes gaze vacantly through cities of fat cloudsbelching up slightly charred skinssulphoric introductions, proof of suitable vocation,and polite condolences bring no red silkbrittle parchment etchedby instruments of less appropriate passionmy aching sewer's palms now transparent and thincradle a chin a stitched mute mouthan end to asking: where are youPage 15 Detentelet me teach you about spaceit doesn't really existwe create it with our negationsour persistent moralities,our watches, our walls of factsand other useless foolishnessthe need for being nakedkeeps us busy sewing costumesthat never fit our specific humiliationsjust as being lightkeeps us nervously gathering weightcollecting stones that can not sinkthe water of who we areno matter how carefullywe crush or build our livesdrinking in litanies of bitternesspissing out our chosen vanitiesin the endwe'll wear each others faces gladlylike sun and moonwe are always togetherand where we are is hereinside one anotherdangerous in our forgettingPage 16 Untitled (for r.g.)trouble meconjure a dream of you or steal my sleepcurling like a waveI'm half awake longing for the scentof you hidden in daylight like a deerdress me like a foreignermake a turquoise bonnet of your laughtera turban of red silk and say: where only this in towntrouble megrind my bones with missing youkeep me humbledoubt and joy quiver, a riverbeneath the plain of this lonely bellyscold me. chide me to center and hold steadythe fading vision of you in the distanceI create gliding off in my chariot of feartrouble mecleanse my sad history with the fever of needing yougrace me with a slow recoverythe blessing of all your stories, true and falseconquer the dark armies of this uncertain heartdisloyal guards betray me when I'm kissedmelt the crystalized honey between these southern, secret lipsPage 17 then follow my cries nto an illumined salt deep.I'll be eyes under the surface, I'll sing the boat maker's song,I'll polish you, my brass sextant angled to a star-pocked skytrouble meshake the black rattle of sudden death against my stopped earcommand me shout the names of those we murdered with our wingswhisper the names of those who left for better and for bloodundulating in your embraceI chant loose each too small skinthat must be shedI beg you, wind tightly round my body nowmore fiercely than the lie: I am not lovedor for drinking this wineone of us must lose his soultrouble mehold me like a letter you will readand read again when you are oldPage 18 Star WheatLook at in my eyesas though you will never see againbefore you decide who you are;love me as if I needed youarrow, talon, thornwhite lilac of what never wasyou hesitatestag in an apple orchardglitters in spiral encounterof light and motionmore powerful than hoof and horngive in this moment what you knowwas meant to be givenwhat you will beg to be taken from youwhen all that remains is an endless descentPage 19 you'll testify in a dream thenfingering ancient windless patternsguttural utterance a distant avenue of angelsbeveled cloud, incandescent kernel of star wheatpowdery as a moth's wingI am burned aliveburied, stoned, drownedborn before and aftertide performs its habit of moonfinding center in empty spacelike a woman who has finished her knitting

Poetry

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