A Glass of Water
The stars, for the glimpsing,
for the gazing beyond. A crush of stars
heavy with the dark October sky.
--Or red blood cells scattered on the slide’s white
field. Worlds without, worlds within.
Yesterday, in the tall grass
by a creek below mountains and forming
mountains of cloud, there was
nothing I wanted to possess, I who love
the flesh so much and try to make
a house within poems.
When my clumsy hand first learned to write yes
I placed a sun over trees by a river
and realized much later
yes cannot be written. And no is a stone growing larger
until it shrinks, finally unnoticed
within the mountain.
Petru sang in the choir in Bucharest, sang in the choir
as a boy, and later worked as a barber in Auschwitz
where his jaw and teeth were broken.
Now he sells auto parts in Cleveland. He says
radiator and wipes the spit from his chin.
Marina, he says, her name was Marina.
Pour a glass of water in sunlight. Now lift
it toward your mouth and try to imagine
the same act in a fleshless world.
The sky’s swarming with stars. To sing
nothing into being. Grass, trees,
and clouds. Just try.
Mark Irwin