SHAPE OF ABSENCE  XXI

Since the day of your passing everyone migrated. We, who

stayed behind, are strangers to the day and to the night. The dark

steps of fear creak deep in the mirrors with the concern that

perhaps we might cut ourselves while shaving, that perhaps

we won’t recognize our strange faces, which you recognized

           as yours and ours too.

Only the road where we took you for a walk during the hot

           summer afternoons

up to the small station, along the flower shop and the bakery,

           that road

retains the marks of the wheels of your carriage

as if in a noisy tunnel of our old time, untouched

by the low tone chirps of the birds, the fragrance

           of the fruit, 

the curses one hears in the marketplace. Our space,

untouched, unspoiled, holy, beyond time, a tunnel

that secretly takes you from under the thoughtful

           good evening of the neighbours.

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Tears

Tears run down the cheeks

of the statue during its hour

of meditative thought as if

a merciless thunder covered

the shining palms of the tourist

flawless end and nothing

will ever sprout in my palms but

thanatos as the sun shone hot

on the glyph’s smooth skin,

on the decapitated bust of Athena

under which I’ll bury the foreign

perversion: lavish tables, canned nature,

and preservatives when the arm

of the Goddess pointed over the sand

to the end of the horizon

where birds sang with lustful voices,

joyous and pleasant quivering, first

hymeneal song of my virginal spring

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Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

2023 Longlist Announcement

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