Thursday, September 13, 2007

Line 'em up


I'm armed and ready for a fresh stack of compositions. No, I don't use red ink.
* * *

Here's a poem by Dionisio Martínez, from History as a Second Language:

Charlie Parker: Almost Like Being in Love

These are the shadows of water when water
is thick and no longer transparent.
They are everywhere--on the walls,
across the ceiling.

It was always this good.
One night you undressed me in my sleep.
Very slowly, you told me later.
You said I smelled good.
The sweater, I said. I'd taken it
out of the drawer where I kept
my winter clothes.
It smelled of pine and a long summer.
No, you said. Not wood.
More like the inside of a saxophone case,
all velvet and sweet regrets.
All blues, I said. Blues
and whatever shadows are made of,

I said, falling on you like slow water.

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