There are these questions
arising as if out of nowhere,
warm-blooded and full as the wind’s
bodied passage— That morning,
for instance: when the mother,
oracular, slumped to the floor
after heaving handfuls of still-
green bananas into the air like missiles.
And the stalk from which they were gleaned
quivered against the doorframe, like a bow
with which arrows had just been launched.
What word from the mother-in-law
hung in the air preceding this
onslaught? My ear quickens
to the humming of bees in the backyard,
radio signals of sticky love multiplied
in each golden cell. Some things pass
without saying from woman to woman:
shreds of song, pennants
of explosive radiance.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Landscape, in the Aftermath of Flood
- A Carol
- Little Winter Song
- Because it is years since I last saw you
- Landscape, with Remnants of a Tale
- En Crépinette
- Luces
- Clearing
- Postscript
- Animus
- Improvisation
- New
- My mother turns 78 and texts
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- [post temporarily removed by author]
- Dark Body
- Oír
- Rezar
- Inflorescence
- Midpoint
- Chalk Circle
- Oracle
- Mermaids
- Tarot: False Spring
- Making Dinner, I Hear Rostropovich on the Radio
- Field Notes
- Aragonaise
- Road Trip, ca. 1980
- Gold Study
- Triptych
- Marker
- Serif
- Compline
- Ghazal Par Amour
- White List
- Dear noisy stream gurgling in the distance,
- Between
- First, Blood
- Aura
- Mirador
- Rock, Paper, Scissors
- Interrogations
- Thread and Surface
- Maquette
- Legacy
- Diorama, with Mountain City and Fog
- Preparing the Balikbayan Box
- The Jewel in the Fruit
- Lumen
- Landscape, with Geese; and Later, Falling Snow
- Illusion
- Landscape, with Threads of Conversation
- Chroma
- First One, Then the Other
- Apostrophe
- Provision
- To Silence
- Morning, Cape Town
- Empty Ghazal
- High in the hills, the dead
- Practice
- Besame,
- Index
- Augury
- Dear unseen one,
- Bindings
- Saturday Afternoon at the Y
- Dear Epictetus, this is to you attributed:
- How have I failed to notice until now
- Cusp
- Field Note
- Dear shadow,