Here is the little earthworm-eater
she-kiwi.
She’s in her frenzy of lust.
There she goes in her flightless
night journey, in mating season,
warm in her fur-feathers
poking her long bill, beaker,
with nostrils at the tip
sniffing and drilling
scratching and uprooting
with her powerful feet
pausing, maybe, to let
herself be mounted
furiously and briefly
by a he-kiwi whose
odor is to her liking.
Then there she goes again —
through the underbrush
(followed by her 
faithful seducer)
back to her querencia
to burrow down
and wait and sometime
later she stands up

suddenly, and hatches
a big egg
nearly half the size
of her little body.
Finished, she steps away
and the father-to-be
steps in and sits
on the egg
warming it,
sits and sits warmly,
for three months
while she-kiwi, lustful still,
goes out looking
to get laid again.

And when we are finished, I ask
            if she thinks us grotesque,
two plain monsters basking
            in our blood—our liquid plaque.

We celebrate the art of
            our unmaking. She spirals my body
into a single drop, ambrosia
            spoiled by the Gods. I copy

the signature of her sin-
            ged moan, grind it down
until it becomes my own dim
            map. Even the Gods fuck. Crown

themselves in gardens pastored
            by snakes. I am crying. Not out of shame
but out of tradition. To have mastered
            this want, only to carve for it a lock, a name

as queer as unholy. How queer it fits
            inside the mouth, how queer is my woman
and the sweat she makes of me, a sweet trick
            of her tongue. Don’t we deserve a hand-

made altar. Don’t we deserve a crowd
            of worshipers to carry our bed. And yes
please to the beads, the sacred
            wars, the body ornaments, the vain-eyed

statues pulsing deep with our flood.
            Yes to the orchestrated violence, a quiver
licked down my spine. May our love blood
            the skies like a storm of Gods high off terror.

O Zeus. O Oshun. O Ra. O Kali. O Me. O Her. O Gods—God? 
            Yes. Gods. Don’t act like you don’t know our names’ roar.
Whispered. Sweet and savage inside your temples.
            Preserved behind velvet doors.

Promise you wont forget
each time we met
we kept our clothes on
despite obvious intentions
to take them off,
seldom kissed or even slept,
talked to spend desire,
worn exhausted from regret.

Continue our relationship apart
under surveillance, torture, persecuted
confinement’s theft; no must or sudden blows
when embodied spirits mingled
despite fall’s knock
we rode the great divide
of falsehood, hunger and last year

’T is but a score of hours when he didst swear
My sorrow and my joy to share.
    Despite the fates, fore’er ;
But now he’s gone to cash again his lie ;
    Others his shame with me will wear,
                  Why should I die?

Last night his lips my very feet didst burn ;
His kisses dropt, my love to earn,
    Whichever way he’d turn ;
But now he’s gone another soul to rob,
    Another heart to lure and spurn,
                   Why should I sob?

He did not kiss me when he said good-bye ;
I let him go, not asking why,
    Nor do I for him sigh ;
He’s gone another virgin breast to tear.
    He’s gone on other lips to die,
                    Why should I care?

My sorrow, when she’s here with me,
     Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
     She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
     She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted grey
     Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
     The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
     And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
     The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
     And they are better for her praise.

God knew I’d struggled lone and long,
He heard me crying in the night;
He knew I was not strong
Enough to carry out the fight,
So he drew me from the noisy throng;
And breathed into my soul a song.

try calling it hibernation.
Imagine the darkness is a cave
in which you will be nurtured
by doing absolutely nothing.
Hibernating animals don’t even dream.
It’s okay if you can’t imagine
Spring. Sleep through the alarm
of the world. Name your hopelessness
a quiet hollow, a place you go
to heal, a den you dug,
Sweetheart, instead
of a grave.

Though the people on the internet help too. 
They send money by pressing a small button 
on their screens. It would be disingenuous 
to claim all the credit—we can’t heal

or hurt alone. I sniff the tops of the rose heads 
like a newborn’s scalp—fresh skin and hair
only a few days picked. I try to arrange the flowers
on my bed, create a romantic scene 

like all the 90s rom-coms I still watch. I’m stuck
in the past, I know. I’m stuck in the present, 
I know that too. I thought the roses 
could be a cure, and maybe in a small way

they were, each petal I plucked so gently 
from the stems gave in to me. 

^{translated from the French of Judith Gautier by James Whitall}

Before daybreak the breezes whisper 
through the trellis at my window;
they interrupt and carry off my dream, 
and he of whom I dreamed 
vanishes from me. 

I climb upstairs 
to look from the topmost window, 
but with whom? . . .

I remember how I used to stir the fire 
with my hairpin of jade 
as I am doing now . . .
but the brasier holds nothing but ashes. 

I turn to look at the mountain; 
there is a thick mist, 
a dismal rain, 
and I gaze down at the wind-dappled river, 
the river that flows past me forever 
without bearing away my sorrow. 

I have kept the rain of my tears 
on the crape of my tunic; 
with a gesture I fling these bitter drops 
to the wild swans on the river, 
that they may be my messengers.

Les Cygnes Sauvages

^{translated from the Chinese of Li Qingzhao by Judith Gautier}

Le vent souffle, avant l’aube, au dehors, sur les treillis de ma fenêtre.

Il interrompt et emporte mon rêve, il efface tout vestige de lui.

Pour voir aux alentours, je monte à l’étage supérieur . . . avec qui? . . .

Autrefois, je me souviens, du bout de l’épingle en jade de ma coiffure, je remuais le feu,

Comme je le fais à présent . . . mais le brasero est éteint.

Je tourne la tête vers la montagne: la pluie, un épais brouillard.

Je regarde vers le fleuve, tout bossué de vagues; le fleuve qui coule toujours, devant moi, sans emporter ma peine.

Sur le crêpe de ma tunique, j’ai gardé la pluie de mes larmes;

D’une chiquenaude, je chasse ces gouttes amères vers les cygnes du fleuve, pour qu’ils soient mes messagers.

浪淘沙·帘外五更风

帘外五更风，
吹梦无踪。
画楼重上与谁同？
记得玉钗斜拨火，
宝篆成空。

回首紫金峰，
雨润烟浓。
一江春浪醉醒中。
留得罗襟前日泪，
弹与征鸿。

To all of you
      My little stone
      Sinks quickly
      Into the bosom of this deep, dark pool
      Of oblivion . . .
      I have troubled its breast but little
      Yet those far shores
      That knew me not
      Will feel the fleeting, furtive kiss
      Of my time concentric ripples . . .

To Lewellyn
      You have borne full well
      The burden of my friendship—
      I have drunk deep
      At your crystal pool,
      And in return
      I have polluted its waters
      With the bile of my hatred.
      I have flooded your soul
      With tortuous thoughts,
      I have played Iscariot
      To your Pythias . . .

To Mother
      I came
      In the blinding sweep
      Of ecstatic pain,
      I go
      In the throbbing pulse
      Of aching space—
      In the eons between
      I piled upon you
      Pain on pain
      Ache on ache
      And yet as I go
      I shall know
      That you will grieve
      And want me back . . .

To B——
      You have freed me—
      In opening wide the doors
      Of flesh
      You have freed me
      Of the binding leash.
      I have climbed the heights
      Of white disaster
      My body screaming
      In the silver crash of passion . . .
      Before you gave yourself
      To him
      I had chained myself
      For you.
      But when at last
      You lowered your proud flag
      In surrender complete
      You gave me too, as hostage—
      And I have wept my joy
      At the dawn-tipped shrine
      Of many breasts.

To Jean
      When you poured your love
      Like molten flame
      Into the throbbing mold
      Of her pulsing veins
      Leaving her blood a river of fire
      And her arteries channels of light,
      I hated you . . .
      Hated with the primal hate
      That has its wells
      In the flesh of me
      And the flesh of you
      And the flesh of her
      I hated you—
      Hated with envy
      Your mastery of her being . . .
      With one fleshy gesture
      You pricked the iridescent bubble
      Of my dreams
      And so to make
      Your conquest more sweet
      I tell you now
      That I hated you.

To Catalina
      Love thy piano, Oh girl,
      It will give you back
      Note for note
      The harmonies of your soul.
      It will sing back to you
      The high songs of your heart.
      It will give
      As well as take . . .

To Mariette
      I sought consolation
      In the sorrow of your eyes.
      You sought reguerdon
      In the crying of my heart . . .
      We found that shattered dreamers
      Can be bitter hosts . . .

To ——
      You call it
      Death of the Spirit
      And I call it Life . . .
      The vigor of vibration,
      The muffled knocks,
      the silver sheen of passion's flood,
      The ecstasy of pain . . .
      You call it
      Death of the Spirit
      And I call it Life.

To Telie
      You have made my voice
      A rippling laugh
      But my heart
      A crying thing . . .
      ’Tis better thus:
      A fleeting kiss
      And then,
      The dark . . .

To “Chick”
      Oh Achilles of the moleskins
      And the gridiron
      Do not wonder
      Nor doubt that this is I
      That lies so calmly here—
      This is the same exultant beast
      That so joyously
      Ran the ball with you
      In those far flung days of abandon.
      You remember how recklessly
      We revelled in the heat and the dust
      And the swirl of conflict?
      You remember they called us
      The Terrible Two?
      And you remember
      After we had battered our heads
      And our bodies
      Against the stonewall of their defense,—
      You remember the signal I would call
      And how you would look at me
      In faith and admiration
      And say “Let's go,” . . .
      How the lines would clash
      And strain,
      And how I would slip through
      Fighting and squirming
      Over the line
      To victory.
      You remember, Chick? . . .
      When you gaze at me here
      Let that same light
      Of faith and admiration
      Shine in your eyes
      For I have battered the stark stonewall
      Before me . . .
      I have kept faith with you
      And now
      I have called my signal,
      Found my opening
      And slipped through
      Fighting and squirming
      Over the line
      To victory . . .

To Wanda
      To you, so far away
      So cold and aloof,
      To you, who knew me so well,
      This is my last Grand Gesture
      This is my last Great Effect
      And as I go winging
      Through the black doors of eternity
      Is that thin sound I hear
      Your applause? . . .