Honey Like Forgiveness | Mark Conway

Honey Like Forgiveness | Mark Conway

He counts on me
like he counts the corn.
He worries down to Harvest.

 

While Father sleeps,
the moon gets fat on cheese—
it lasts all night,

 

a little head on fire,
still eating. It’s like me,
I heal well, too.

 

When Father leaves for town,
there will be a silver
flask, forgotten

 

cigarettes, everything
I’ve been punished for
there for the taking.

 

In the morning I still like
to see the thorn riding
its rose

 

and put out
my thumb to prick
the needle, swollen to the stem.

 

When he returns, the mare blooded
on the flanks,
I’ll clear her eyes with water,

 

then vapor seethes off her back.
The mare is so beautiful
he rides her

 

too hard to get home, the way
he loves me so much
it makes him angry.

 

He said I am forgiven.
I only have to ask like the bird
for seed. I’m the one

 

who caught it and named it,
stupid wren crashing
into windows. I only expect it

 

to sing. I give it old cake
drenched in honey, stick
its beak shut, say Sing.

Adrienne Rich - From an Atlas of the Difficult World

I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour.  I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet.  I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age.  I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

 

To Anita -- sonia sanchez

To Anita
high/yellow/black/girl
walken like the sun u be.
move on even higher.
        those who
laugh at yo/color
        have not moved
to the blackness we be about
cuz as Curtis Mayfield be sayen
we people be darker than blue
        and quite a few
of us be yellow
        all soul/shades of
blackness.
        yeah. high/yellow/black/girl
    walk yo/black/song
      cuz some of us
        be hearen yo/sweet/music.

on the right to marry -- rafael campo

ON THE RIGHT TO MARRY

May 16,2004

Will you remember me the way I am
today? This long engagement---twenty years---
has taken something of a toll. I came
to bed last night, and thought that we were far

from being done with dreams. You turned to me,
and I was young, and still afraid; June's moon
peered in, parental with concern. My knee
ached, punishment for worshipping the loam

in our small garden. Irises in bloom,
their wizened, bearded faces beautiful
old men's, dispensed their blessings and their blame.
You painted furniture, and said “I will,

of course I will.” I planted savory,
not hardy through the winter months, beside
the mint you hate for its invasiveness.
A breeze intruded, always the bright bride

the whole world wants to marry. A life's work,
as yet only half done, ubiquitous---
I felt tired, and it would soon be dark,
but none may refuse love, not even us.