The Authority of Elsewhere

^{—for Agha Shahid Ali}

Smiling unconsciously under the northern lights

the authority of elsewhere

sleeps in my bed.

I shamble in with my entire entourage of appetites

demanding to be fed

but her authority lies unconscious in my bed.

I want the particulars of her appearance.

I beat my claws on the empty air

because I want to live in her lively head

I want my incoherent prayer

to awaken her coherence.

The atmosphere is turning red

but she continues dreaming in my bed.

Wherever I go, she goes

one step ahead

into foreign languages

I have never understood.

She is Asia. She languishes

in some further wood

where no one knows

the meaning of what is said.

her eyes are closed. She’s in my bed.

Shall I take a photograph

to prove that she existed here

that my bed was warm enough for her

that the possibility of happiness

is never exhausted so long

as I can see it? That there is no abyss

between the astronomer and the star

nor any universal grief

that whispers we are far, far

from what it is we want in life?

But the photograph is wrong—

she illustrates a law

that postulates the heart

if the heart grows a body, the body grows a paw

the paw begins to think what part

it wants to play. Whatever it might reach,

whatever we touch

whatever is stolen constructed caressed or bought

is the fateful destination of the heart.

So any thoughts that circle in my head

are only photographs pretending to be art—

the authority of elsewhere posing in my bed.

A woman in the marketplace

in Oaxaca is picturesque.

The history of sunlight has imprinted on her face

the stark topography of a mask.

I took her picture but I’m not there.

I stare into her eyes which are placed upon my desk

and I think her life continues, or has ended, elsewhere.

Thus Mexico and Africa and Asia rise into the mist

as pyramids and history and hieroglyphs which we at best

under northern lights are qualified to dream about.

In a dream I wander out

beyond these premises to prove

that extravagant darkness is what I love.

I am searching for the ground.

I am told there is a fabulous beast

which certain populations east

of here consider sacred

or so they say or so I’ve read

or so, according to some authority, is not an unfounded

fact. The authority of elsewhere sleeps in my bed

she is undercover, she is naked

she leaves every word unsaid.