I found it among curios and silver in the pureness of wintry light. A woman painted on a leaf. Fine lines drawn on a veined surface in a hand-made frame. This is not my face. Neither did I draw it. A leaf falls in the garden. The moon cools its aftermath of sap. The pith of summer dries out in starlight. A woman is inscribed there. This is not death. It is the terrible suspension of life. I want a poem I can grow old in. I want a poem I can die in. I want to take this dried-out face, as you take a starling from behind iron, and return it to its elements of air, of ending- so that Autumn which was once the hard look of stars, the frown on a gardener's face, a gradual bronzing of the distance, will be, from now on, a crisp tinder underfoot. Cheekbones. Eyes. Will be a mouth crying out. Let me. Let me die. |
© 1994 from In a Time of Violence (W.W. Norton)