XVI

 

Sometimes I write, and I wonder
whether the shape of all my poems, amassed
Isn’t the shape of my birth, itself.

I feel my ear — a fig,
its Malta Black glands with honey in them.

Fields of blue eyes
hope to feel the sight of you:
Their long fingers, once flowers frozen in cold water,
are now leopard plants, velvet viboons

A mouth, heartlike — I imagine:
if you were to open my head,
you would find a heart in it.

Then I think at how my mouth opens,
and makes your beautiful name.