Ghazal

Summary

Not even our eyes are our own …

– Frederico García Lorca, The House of Bernarda Alba

I want to tune in to the surface, beside the mayfly

listen to how she holds her decorum on the skin of the pond.

I want to sequester words, hold them in stress positions,

foreignate them, string them up to ripen on vines

and I want to commune with rain and for the rain

to be merciful, a million tiny pressures on my flesh.

I refuse to return as either rose or tulip but wish

to be planted under the desiring night sky.

I want to be concentrated to a line under the pleat of your palm

and for it to radiate opalesque under shadow.

I want God's fingers to break and for you to watch

as I fold my sleeve, reveal each detail of my paling wrist.