When I am on fire
I’d like my clothes off
I sit by the window
where bird songs
cool me.
If I were a tree
the birds would come
rest in my hair
chatter so much
I’d forget my sorrow.
When squirrels creep
between my legs
stroke my nipples
with their fleecy tails
forget I crave a man.
Yes, when my heart swells
with grief, there is always a bird
that can, with the touch
of its beak,
crack me open.
It’s becoming slimmer and slimmer!
We ate enormously.
We ate everything.
We were nice hungry people.
When our plates
were as empty
as our eyes, we looked at each other
and smiled vigorously.
It’s growing thinner and thinner!
We ate spaciously
We were beautiful hungry people,
living in a beautiful stuffed world,
We ate everything:
meat and skin
roots and cartilage
clocks and joints
nails and stuff
genitals and information
hair and leaves
sky and bones
stars and water
space and air
bones and music
peelings and pits
seeds and tongues
bowls and galaxies
roots and leaves
earth and teeth
viscera and weapons
soil and images
eyes, livers, and words
And black holes
And black holes
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Then, when there was
nothing left, only us,
we slept together
and laughed gluttonously.
It’s becoming skinner and skinnier
just because we are awfully good hungry people:
prettier and hungrier than ever.
We need to eat, need to be happy;
We need to smile
to show our sharp beautiful teeth.
The snow on my monitor
is hot. I can’t roll it into a ball
or slip it under your shirt.
Nor can I slide my fingers,
between your moustache and lower lip
as you let out a laugh
at the other end of the Net,
where your camera catches my image.
Do the world’s mountains remain
high and hard to climb, though the world
is now a small village? you type your new poem.
My monitor is tiled with the mountain
on whose lap sits Tehran,
frowning. I cut your icon, naked,
from the chat window, sink it
in a heap of snow. You continue,
Will there again be a day
when we climb a mountain?
Your head cocks off-screen.
My speaker crackles with your voice.
I listen as I search for the images
of mountains—the Alamkoh,
the first one our hiking group
started with; the Andes and the Himalayas
we never got to.
There will be a day, I am sure, when we’ll find
ourselves together, on a mountain top,
I whisper, close my eyes to keep your picture
ascending, alone in the cold, windy bowl
of my eyelids. I try to see Cypress
each day before class, I say when I see
your eyes blur like a lake on the Sabalan
beneath the drizzling rain.
You try to smile, but the corner of your lip
twitches suddenly. I hold on to the arms
of my swivel chair, sit firmly, recite
your last poem: It takes a long time
to get there, but you know I will return.
My ankles are sore from the journey,
but I know I will come back.
Show me the way; blow our songs
into the wind. It will be my last breath
in the desolate air of this mountain.
So finally, you smile.
Yes—smile. Sit back secure and straight
like the flag we hoisted on the Tochal,
sway your body the way you did
when you held me in your arms,
and, there, wave my flag.