It is said, the past
sticks to the present
like glue,
that we are flies
struggling to pull free
It is said, someone
cannot change
the clothes
in which
their soul
was born.
I, however,
would not
go so far
Nor am I Rembrandt,
master of the black
and green darkness,
the hawk’s plumes
as it shrieks
down from the sky
From Borrowed Love Poems by John Yau, published by Penguin Putnam. Copyright © 2002 by John Yau. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.