Thursday, November 21, 2002

Poem for Thursday


Constantly
by Jane Shore


I woke, for an instant,
not knowing you.
Before touch, before

the thought of touch.
In the level darkness
I could locate

nothing of you,
no manacle of outline,
and I thought

how, each morning, the body
wakes to recognize
its shape, again

the tender landscape
given, the strangeness
of the right hand

orbiting the side,
the wrists where pulse
can quicken at a word.

And the body,
fluent in its element,
is water that the dailiness

of life runs over.
Now this, now
that; heartbeat,

the pupil widening
to light, admits
what's attended to—

a chair mimics
the woman seated,
cup's handle accepts

her hand. The body
receptive also, and birds
occupy the ear.

In darkness, the eye
shapes its constellation.
The hand

traces. Two fish
swim in their starry
perimeters, but the bird's

song's instinct,
a template in the brain.
Never let me fix you

ever, be the cloud
constantly inventing
its body like a dream

passing through your eye,
each morning dreaming
the sky a moment earlier

to light, skimming the sudden
unfamiliar coast.
And below the coast,

in the clearest water
senses can distill, here,
before love, touch returns

us to that density
silence roots the very
center of.

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