Relief at St. Martin's Island
(for Julia Klimenova)
1.
On St. Martin's coral-
beach I watch out
and steady
my legs ankle-deep
into cold sand and half-
sunk in the low tide,
intently smoking
and feeling my eyes
so bloody exhausted
yet so quick to fish
nibbling and to seagulls
against the sun's yolk;
and I wonder
who knows at what cost
I have kept my eagerness
for a little relief
when everyone's awestruck
lips flick open,
everyone's so scared
of a colder current
down the spine –
of crash and other
terrific jargons of it,
even though I was
infatuated with ghouls
irritably eating moribund
aspirations
and leaving with me
disasters in the Third Reich.
Then ruin's not
yet sprawled its empire
into my marrow nor flicked
its serpent tongue
onto my brain the whore –
easy thigh-widening
for the invading gloom.
2.
Julia, as you walk
the streets of Moscow,
you might have given
a thought to things
the way a mother cares
for her child's toys –
so inscrutable
the instruments
of innocence
for breaking Time's
insatiable teeth (its jaws
can't but swallow
even without teeth):
and it would be
so unthinkable for sure –
a dull wonder
that you do not store
much firewood
in a coldest November
against the frost impending
on windowpanes.
Let's see how relief
grows green branches
patulous into us.
Poetry by Sofiul Azam
Read 1301 times
Written on 2007-01-14 at 11:19
Tags Anxiety
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