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