When the starvation-hair appears
all over my body, you call it fascinating,
which is not the same as beautiful.
I never decide what to wish for first,
food or you. Or rather, eating food again
or never again eating you. Your favorite part
of me, my cupped hipbone, empty
as a half mango scooped clean of its flesh.
Your least favorite part, my hunger.

I learn to fill myself with other things:
the julienned light in the bedroom, mouthfuls
of Debussy from the old piano, the endless suck
of the toilet, which, bravely, never stops running.
Even vowels become impossible luxuries,
so round they seem indulgent against my tongue.

I consider violence after hearing that on death row
you get one last perfect meal. I imagine the photo
in the newspaper story, where I look so
beautiful.

I think of the woman in the Bible
who asks for John’s head on a platter.
Maybe she was only hungry.
Maybe she wanted to be satisfied.

My two delicate hums. 

My pair of soft assemblies.

My want is a canary rattling the morning’s thin frame, 

the steady breath of droplets following months of bad weather, 

two small plates dismembered on the hardwood.

Despite evidence, I think love should indent the self in some way. 

My breasts, the swollen lunch of mosquitos. 
 

Sometimes, 

the crave is too much for one body. 

I take my woman pills with an apathetic edge because I’m brutally aware 

of what they won’t fix. 
 

My imagined daughter. My imagined son. 

Please forgive my circumstance. 

When I talk to my friends I pretend I am standing on the wings 

of a flying plane. I cannot be trusted to tell them how I am. 
Or if I am falling to earth weighing less 

than a dozen roses. Sometimes I dream they have broken up 

with their lovers and are carrying food to my house. 
When I open the mailbox I hear their voices 

like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle 

passing through the tall grasses and ferns 
after the train has passed. I never get ahead of their shadows. 

I embrace them in front of moving cars. I keep them away 

from my miseries because to say I am miserable is to say I am like them. 

No sun today
. Rain seems not
tears, but retribution
. All of us are victims
, none of us are pure
; none of us are safe
. Things are bad, and we
will not be comforted
. We’d rather re-watch
the tragedy, re-tell our
horrors, spew
about revenge
. We don’t want comfort
yet – we want vindication
, acknowledgement
, the nodding of heads saying
yes, this happened, and
it     is    horrible. No
comfort, not yet – we want
the mirror of our blood
and fear and agony on
another face. We have
forgotten comfort, how
and where to look for it
 

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes – 
I wonder if It weighs like Mine – 
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long – 
Or did it just begin – 
I could not tell the Date of Mine – 
It feels so old a pain – 

I wonder if it hurts to live – 
And if They have to try – 
And whether – could They choose between – 
It would not be – to die – 

I note that Some – gone patient long – 
At length, renew their smile –  
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil – 

I wonder if when Years have piled –  
Some Thousands – on the Harm –  
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –  

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve – 
Enlightened to a larger Pain –  
In Contrast with the Love –  

The Grieved – are many – I am told –  
There is the various Cause –  
Death – is but one – and comes but once –  
And only nails the eyes –  

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –  
A sort they call "Despair" –  
There's Banishment from native Eyes – 
In sight of Native Air –  

And though I may not guess the kind –  
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –  

To note the fashions – of the Cross –  
And how they're mostly worn –  
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own – 

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
   Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

^{translated from the Spanish by the Benedictines of Stanbrook}

         Vivo sin vivir en mi.

I live, but yet I live not in myself, 
For since aspiring to a life more high
I ever die because I do not die.

This mystic union of Love divine,
The bond whereby alone my soul doth live, 
Hath made of God my Captive—but to me 
True liberty of heart the while doth give.
And yet my spirit is so sorely pained 
At gazing on my Lord by me enchained, 
That still I die because I do not die.

Alas, how wearisome a waste is life!
How hard a fate to bear! In exile here
Fast locked in iron fetters lies my soul,
A prisoner in earth’s mournful dungeon drear. 
But yet the very hope of some relief
Doth wound my soul with such tormenting grief, 
That still I die because I do not die.

No life so bitter, none so sad as mine
While exiled from my Lord my days are spent, 
For though to love be sweet, yet hope deferred 
Is wearisome: from life’s long banishment,
O God, relieve me! from this mournful freight 
Which crushes with a more than leaden weight,
So that I die because I do not die.

I live, since death must surely come at last;— 
Upon that hope alone my trust I build,
For when this mortal life shall die, at length 
My longings then will wholly be fulfilled.
Come, Death, come, bring life’s certainty to me, 
O tarry thou no more !—I wait for thee,
And ever die because I do not die.

From “Glosa”

Vivo sin vivir en mi,
Y tan alta vida espero,
Que muero porque no muero.

Aquesta divina unión 
Del amor con que yo vivo,
Hace á Dios ser mi cautivo,
Y libre mi corazón:
Mas causa en mí tal pasión 
Ver á Dios mi prisionero,
Que muero porque no muero.

       ¡Ay! ¡ qué larga es esta vida! 
¡Qué duros estos destierros, 
Esta cárcel y estos hierros 
En que el alma está metida! 
Solo esperar la salida 
Me causa un dolor tan fiero,
Que muero porque no muero.

       ¡Ay! ¡ qué vida tan amarga 
Do no se goza el Señor!
Y si es dulce el amor,
No lo es la esperanza larga: 
Quíteme Dios esta carga,
Mas pesada que de acero,
Que muero porque no muero.

Solo con la confianza 
Vivo de que he de morir,
Porque muriendo el vivir 
Me asegura mi esperanza:
Muerte do el vivir se alcanza,
No te tardes, que te espero,
Que muero porque no muero.

To-night the west o’er-brims with warmest dyes;
Its chalice overflows
With pools of purple colouring the skies,
Aflood with gold and rose;
And some hot soul seems throbbing close to mine,
As sinks the sun within that world of wine.

I seem to hear a bar of music float
And swoon into the west;
My ear can scarcely catch the whispered note,
But something in my breast
Blends with that strain, till both accord in one,
As cloud and colour blend at set of sun.

And twilight comes with grey and restful eyes,
As ashes follow flame.
But O! I heard a voice from those rich skies
Call tenderly my name;
It was as if some priestly fingers stole
In benedictions o’er my lonely soul.

I know not why, but all my being longed
And leapt at that sweet call;
My heart outreached its arms, all passion thronged
And beat against Fate’s wall,
Crying in utter homesickness to be
Near to a heart that loves and leans to me.

Moon tonight,
Beloved . . .
When twilight
Has gathered together
The ends
Of her soft robe
And the last bird-call
Has died.
Moon tonight—
Cool as a forgotten dream,
Dearer than lost twilights
Among trees where birds sing
No more.

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,
The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path
To the same well-worn rock;
The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun
The same tints—rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey
Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;
Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to a point;
Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,
Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,
Watching, watching—watching me;
The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will dusk after dusk;
The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the night, chin on knees
Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly miserable,
       —The eyes of my Regret.

Near the path through the woods I’ve seen it:
a trail of white candles.

I could find it again, I could follow
its light deep into shadows.

Didn’t I stand there once?
Didn’t I choose to go back

down the cleared path, the familiar?
Narcissus, you said. Wasn’t this

the flower whose sudden enchantments
led Persephone down into Hades?

You remember the way she was changed
when she came every spring, having seen

the withering branches, the chasms,
and how she had to return there

helplessly, having eaten
the seed of desire. What was it

I saw you were offering me
without meaning to, there in the sunlight,

while the flowers beckoned and shone
in their flickering season?

What of the days when we two dreamed together?
    Days marvellously fair,
As lightsome as a skyward floating feather
    Sailing on summer air—
Summer, summer, that came drifting through
Fate’s hand to me, to you.

What of the days, my dear? I sometimes wonder
    If you too wish this sky
Could be the blue we sailed so softly under,
    In that sun-kissed July;
Sailed in the warm and yellow afternoon,
With hearts in touch and tune.

Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,
    Adrift in my canoe?
To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming
    Cleaving the waters through?
To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until
Your restless pulse grows still?

Do you not long to listen to the purling
    Of foam athwart the keel?
To hear the nearing rapids softly swirling
    Among their stones, to feel
The boat’s unsteady tremor as it braves
The wild and snarling waves?

What need of question, what of your replying?
    Oh! well I know that you
Would toss the world away to be but lying
    Again in my canoe,
In listless indolence entranced and lost,
Wave-rocked, and passion tossed.

Ah me! my paddle failed me in the steering
    Across love’s shoreless seas;
All reckless, I had ne’er a thought of fearing
    Such dreary days as these.
When through the self-same rapids we dash by,
My lone canoe and I.

Everyone who left us we find everywhere.
It’s easier, now, to look them in the eyes—
At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.
Of course, we wonder if they think of us.

It’s easier, now, to look them in the eyes,
Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk.
Of course, we wonder if they think of us
When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm.

Imagine touching a hand, listening to them talk—
Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness.
When nights, like tonight, turn salty, warm,
We think of calling them, leaving messages.

Hard to believe they’re capable of such coldness—
No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction.
We think of calling them, leaving messages
Vivid with news we’re sure they’d want to know.

No color, no pulse, not even a nerve reaction:
We close our eyes in order not to see them.
Vivid with news, we’re sure they’d want to know
We don’t blame them, really. They weren’t cruel.

We close our eyes in order not to see them
Reading, making love, or falling asleep.
We don’t blame them. Really, they weren’t cruel,
Though it hurts every time we think of them:

Reading, making love, or falling asleep,
Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms.
Though it hurts every time we think of them,
Like a taste we can’t swallow their names stay.

Enjoying the usual pleasures and boredoms,
Then, they leave us the look of their faces
Like a taste we can’t swallow. Their names stay,
Diminishing our own, getting in the way

At gravesites, in bed, when the phone rings.
Everyone who left us we find everywhere,
Then they leave us, the look of their faces
Diminishing, our own getting in the way.

Odd how you entered my house quietly,
Quietly left again.
While you stayed you ate at my table,
Slept in my bed.
There was much sweetness,
Yet little was done, little said.
After you left there was pain,
Now there is no more pain.

But the door of a certain room in my house
Will be always shut.
Your fork, your plate, the glass you drank from,
The music you played,
Are in that room
With the pillow where last your head was laid.
And there is one place in my garden
Where it’s best that I set no foot.

My friends are dead who were

the arches    the pillars of my life 

the structural relief when

the world gave none.

My friends who knew me as I knew them

their bodies folded into the ground or burnt to ash.

If I got on my knees

might I lift my life as a turtle carries her home?  

Who if I cried out would hear me?

My friends—with whom I might have spoken of this—are gone.

The silence is broken: into the nature 
  My soul sails out, 
Carrying the song of life on his brow,
   To meet the flowers and birds.

When my heart returns in the solitude, 
   She is very sad,
Looking back on the dead passions
  Lying on Love’s ruin. 

I am like a leaf
   Hanging over hope and despair, 
Which trembles and joins 
  The world’s imagination and ghost.