Union Square
Whether to approach
from the North
or South
into what failed state
on my way
to
meet you,
crossing the square by whichever means we reach it
There is sound which passes through me, I am
a small column in the street translucent, I saw
spaces between people,
mirrored pillars released from myself,
none is mine, no key
to the tuneless air
The trees resolve into
wildness
are they content
with
their moment
absolved of sky
never in the least wretched
To
be struck by your choice
I have a key to one door in this city
and my job is to carry it around.
My long appointment comes,
what I’d been longing
to say
I lack conviction, disappear in the grass
am terraced
in levels of disbelief
but not faithless
I came to the city where you were.
In the palm of the park
in the palm of your city
such stillness before rain—
my movements don’t make a ripple
and
why did I believe this painting
a
portal for speaking with you—
No door
but a painting a wall a window and where
I had written myself into it—
the leaves in your hand, a skylight
talking to a painting
I know no better than you
what
happened
If we will be pulled apart
after a quiet drink in the lobby
by joy
borrowing a ladder
even joy
has to borrow
to know where you are
The wet marble stairs
the
stairs
orthodox bells ringing the square in sound
colored inside with fantastic blues
communicative and mute, moving
strange or internal like standing
live in presence of
an architectural understanding or love
like that of a painting.
Too grasping when I wanted
to throw open a curtain,
erotic when I meant to lay on top of the sheet
cool after a shower.
The
leaves could speak it
waving close as they do then tearing away
with wind as their excuse.
And I walked out to be plastered over with leaves
like a very weak superhero
who’s forgotten her trick
Will
you see it
on
the wall of my torso in sleep,
flickering across the blades of one
shoulder or another
You in the bright street
a minute stopped, you were looking
at a bracelet abandoned on a step,
my view of you
deliciously occluded in smoke from the incense
man’s table
does it seem like he’s just one incense man though
I
am sure there are many
but
you
are singular and missed by me and here at last
faith too is a kind of enclosure
or is it
a gate
Manic
in their blue bubble the branches
but for a moment I shied off
to watch you in the world, oblivious to
the way it opens
just
for you, buildings
on
the sunny side listing
to eavesdrop on your slightly bowlegged walk
I watched your head rise,
and the corners of your mouth
myself
becoming physically condensed
so
much so I
looked down to see what was happening in there
and you smelled like honey a little and
yesterday’s shirt
—Lori
Shine
Lori Shine's
poems have appeared in The Canary, Conduit,
and Crowd. She is the managing editor of Verse Press
and lives in western Massachusetts.
Originally published in the December
2004/January 2005 issue of Boston Review
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