Tav: ת
From Draw Me After (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022) by Peter Cole. Used with the permission of the publisher.
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This Pig I
This pig I live with really
does hover over much of
what I do and say it’s in
the room I lie in daily when
I try to tell myself the truth
about deceit or what I read
or just my being a jerk and lazy
pissy it brings to mind the swine
within and out of sight it’s like
a shadow in its knowing how
dark at heart I am in part
it loves the muck I’m often in
the sty and stink of me and my
it’s like a household deity now
whose name is mine to give and take
2022
Edensong
Wanting song
in the beginning
beginning to end
now we are falling
through what’s to come
needing Eden
now we are drifting
Eden undone
2022
Improvisation on Lines by Isaac the Blind
Only by sucking, not by knowing, can the subtle essence be conveyed— sap of the word and the world's flowing that raises the scent of the almond blossoming, and yellows the bulbul in the olive's jade. Only by sucking, not by knowing. The grass and oxalis by the pines growing are luminous in us—petal and blade— as sap of the word and the world's flowing; a flicker rising from embers glowing; light trapped in the tree's sweet braid of what it was sucking. Not by knowing is the amber honey of persimmon drawn in.
2008