Marina

 

Marina, let me breathe out
into lips of water;
spaces of the mind in bright blue sunshine
receding quietly in an undone circle.

What is it about those eyes that recognise pain
on a cold night in an unlit window?

As we depart in peace on a dying afternoon,
will you share with me the peace of the moment
and the moment’s failure?

Will you walk beside me always
along this white road seabled with fury,
unreal Jerusalem?

You, the mother of rocks
like the shadow of words in a funeral dance,
vacillating between water and speech.

Time broken is a movement of desire
away from the temptation of gesture.

Approach
with the rhythm of a mad dreamer,
the unconscious ritual of gesture;
the fantasy of the hour that leaves the body
with a stealthy indifference.

Quivering fingers surprised in time
at the strange limit of the centre;
the queer flux of a smile now
entirely rests on speculation.

Breathe out into a history of death,
queer lips of water.

Marina,
unflowering beyond the points of memory
like an action at nightfall,
that resembles the suffering of speech.

All desire is now watered
with this calm symphony of rats
and leaves of children.