"Dark Nipple of the Figs"

[ “Dark Nipple of the Figs” ]

The things we said, or chose not to; the way it happens
when the mind divides, makes an eye flinch. I know
as a door opens to a darker room you'll find it is
a warm September evening. Sometimes we kissed
graceful appetizing female forms in our mind.
we heard my mother's voice, We played frightening games
such as love, and vague. We were lonely and hungry and ordinary.
What is a gust of wind but the act of embrace?
What makes the dream the way it is, subtly aural
and finely positioned like your mouth: and I am still
in bed, the drywall is my skin, your crumpled words
are a perturbed skeletal pattern adorned with molars
darned and huddled in, I suppose, for a process
in the time of history we never made specific.
Sometimes we heard the children crying in hunger in our mind.
We occupied ourselves with sufferings. A body strolling away
from you at some distance, once, twice, or many times
into the expanse of the heavens; your thigh,
dripping rosewater, insect wings and shadowed woods
with a feeling of deep sadness that we had not fulfilled
our senses. Your head and face in particular. My hand
on your waist. When the temperature drops to the bottom
like the dandelion seeds of your breasts
*It was pleasant to imagine* I could see the queen of all
flowers already half-erased. And you are sitting
at my kitchen table, tugging the spilled rice.
How can I tell you now, my heart curls in sorrow
like autumn leaves. And yet later, holding your shoulder,
how could I say "your kiss tastes of blood, or wellwater
flecked with rust?*" The next day I will love my life.
* * * * *


*Title and one line from an Untitled poem by Araki Yasusada