An Island
By white walls and scent of orange leaves,
Come, I’ll tell you. I know nothing.
By this this sea of salt and dolphins
I see but fish in a dome of sun.
In stars that nail me to a door,
There are women with burning hair,
And on the quay at night I fell
But hurricanes and rigid dawn.
On cobblestones at day I watch
Some crazy seabirds fall and drown,
And as the bodies sink to sand
I know I pay my birth with death.
I only see some plains of grass
And sky-sleep in the crossing storks.
I know nothing and see but fire
In the volcano of a cat’s eye.
From Mexico In My Heart: New And Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2015) by Willis Barnstone. Copyright © 2015 by Willis Barnstone. Used with the permission of the author.