HIDE-AND-SEEK
I woke up today to a world spun tight with fog
over the hills the road that we took turned into a forest
we whispered and pleaded to those green leaves
teach us where this darkness goes, how to breathe
and you were tall, handsome, dark with teeth like fox
and you were far away concealed in telephone wires.
I woke up today to my muddy boots flung by a door
everyone will see where I have been walking
they will see those dirty stars, that trampled moon
they will see those leaves that I have chewed up
and yes I have seen behind the mirror of night
ten thousand mercies, ten thousand mistakes.
.
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FRESH SKIN
.
From inside one of the many sleepless nights of this winter, I write to you,
Please, be gentle.
This is to let you know that I am quitting my addiction to scars.
.
You insist of showing me something that I have always known
Wrapped in another language,
Cursed with a new name.
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There was a crow outside the metro station today
And a tourist was taking pictures of it,
So the bird was posing like a model.
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The cat in the snow, patiently waiting to become a snowball
And our bodies, almost cold, stretched across Europe,
Not from Lisbon to Vladivostok, but from Talinn to Cluj,
Teaching our children their three mother tongues.
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You had a room with no windows,
You had a village with no streetlights
You had a forest with no animals,
And I looked upon them and, behold,
They were corrupt.
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HUSBAND
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Last night I spilled a glass of water on our bedside table
which we built one hot summer, as our cats slept.
I was tired and pulled the blankets over myself, even as the water
soaked into the walnut finish and dripped over the carpet.
You never proposed marriage to me.
.
We marry the way turtles or swans do, returning to one another
in every season with a different quarrel. Our honeymoon
was a walk to a hidden creek where we sat on rusted steps
of a water level gauge, smoked marijuana, and spied on deer.
.
Every morning you resemble more closely my husband
I can smell it in your beard, and as you wipe with blue cloths
spilled water carefully in the night. You love that table
with the same protectiveness that my mother loved me
quietly, and with secret gestures.
Very moving poetry. Fresh. Congratulations.