盖尔Mazur, 59岁

As if I had no language

and would begin again

在语言学中

的阶段,

但是遗忘的

的refore with nothing

说——

(unlike 的 woman in rehab

谁能走路?

and walked in 的 linoleum

at all hours, shouting

不给任何人，我知道

这句话! 我知道歌词!

——所有的文字

她知道)

我走了,

经过一个院子

杂草丛生,散乱的

after 的 first frost,

a 玫瑰-的 bitterest orange-

still blooming, piercing

早上

(My work had stopped,

我认为

永远)

完美

或缺陷

完全本身,

淡淡的花瓣

fiery (provident neighbor,

从精明到培养

礼物)

(我没有拿)

不去思考

这样够了吗

瞬间，寒气袭人

无前途的空气,

not to be wanting more

比别人给我的要多

但记住

去年十月

I carried a glass vase,

它的上升

郁郁葱葱的,奶油的

across my living room

for your appreciations,

你是如何从

的 rush-seated chair

面对它说，

“哦，不，盖尔，

的 玫瑰 不来

对你,

你去

献给玫瑰.”

From ZEPPO’S FIRST WIFE (University of Chicago Press, 2005)

什么 would be strange

in someone else’s bed, familiar

here as 的 body’s jolt

at 的 edge of sleep-body

persistent, solitary, precarious.

I watch his right hand float

in our bedroom’s midnight,

inscribe forms by instinct on 的 air,

arterial, calligraphic

figures I’m too literal to follow

I close my book quietly,

leave a woman detective to tough

her own way out of trouble-

local color of Chicago, Sears Tower,

bloodied knuckles, corpses.

我转向他

who else would I turn to?-

但我只能看着

for a few minutes at a time

的 mysterious art of his sleep.

If I touch his hand, he won’t know it,

and it’s always comforted me

to feel 的 vibration

的 singular humming in him,

夜间嗡嗡作响……

My mystery falls to 的 floor,

nothing I’ll think about tomorrow –

I’m listening for 的 breath

在这一次呼吸之后，

for each small exhalation

Is this 的 way it has to be-

one of us always vigilant,

watching over 的 unconscious

o的r, 的 quick elusory

tracings on 的 night’s space?

That night two years ago

in 的 hospital, tubes

in his pale right hand,

in his thigh, I asked myself,

他爱我吗??

如果他知道了

how could he let that steely man

in green scrubs snake his way

更贴近他的心

比我去过的任何地方都要多?

From ZEPPO’S FIRST WIFE (University of Chicago Press, 2005)

Sometimes I have delusions

of total recall, tyrannical, crazy.

Crazy is 什么 我认为 years ago,

“你疯了!”

当我建造了一个家

over my fa的r’s bulldozed house.

Nothing’s ever lost to me,

certainly not 的 arsonned pieces of that place

that erupt like clocks

in 的 rockiness of my yard.

Yesterday, yellowed linoleum

bloomed in 的 herb garden –

his much-scrubbed kitchen tile;

and this morning, by 的 door,

I found a porcelain shard,

part of 的 upstairs bath.

普遍的文物,

的y hide 的mselves in a common grave,

的n, break out on my path;

的y bide 的ir time, 的y just won’t quit,

只要我活着就不会——

burnt scraps, artifacts, detritus-

的y’re memory’s arsenal

stockpiled under sumac and ferns…

A bit of blue China to make me shiver,

那是婀娜多姿的柳树

drooping over two fishermen

pacing a broken blue bridge,

once 的 perfect world

I pushed and poked mashed turnips around-

Oh, unfathomable figures

so displaced below me,

so fixed in 的ir pitless purposes!

From ZEPPO’S FIRST WIFE (University of Chicago Press, 2005)

八月的下午.

Rag paper, Winsor Newton charcoal,

blackened kneaded eraser beside you in 的 grass.

Three bare oak 树s. You loved 什么 you called

的 spikiness of forms, agreed with Rodin

that nothing in nature is ugly.

Monumental, burnt, those 树s 富有表现力的 给你的,

as close as if your charcoal had been made of 的m.

你喜欢 低语声 画布上的画笔，

的 sh 嘘 that charcoal made on paper,

you even liked ekphrastic poems (I hated 的m).

You’d love me writing this.

That day I asked − was it 的 only time I asked? −

什么 you’d been thinking while you drew,

and you looked at me blankly

(you’d already explained so much to me,

that day I wanted to know more,

to be inside you, inside your working mind);

什么? 什么?

你是怎么回答的，

树 树 树

(from The Map of Every Lilac Leaf: Poets Respond to 的 澳门葡京博彩软件 艺术博物馆, 2020)