- The Evanescence of
saint Arnolphine
(for Tomaz
Salamun)
- She of the birchwood at
twilight
- of dolphins and dusty streets,
patroness
- of causes neither lost nor
found
- but half-remembered
- like the prayers of a middle
child.
- The one always glimpsed just
beyond the frame
- her hair gilt, her eyes
clouds.
- The one in the doorway at the
wedding -
- the one who is never the
bride.
-
- Not Arnulf (1) of Metz or (2)
of Soissons or even
- (3) of Eynesbury, those public
ascetics
- resigning bishoprics, founding
monasteries,
- all hair-shirts and duty
- but Arnolphina, a languid
exhalation:
- alas, alas my lady
- alas, my turtle dove.
-
- Though she's escaped The Oxford
Dictionary of Saints
- Your calendar celebrates her
feast.
- A feast held only in leap-years
by the impenitent
- and shy; forgotten
- as grass
- before dew magnifies each
blade
-
- or the violet air -
- at twilight
- between the birches.
-
-
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- Blue, Not
Blue
(for Eva and Eoin
Bourke)
-
- The Atlantic below with the
sheen of metal
- precious, strange, an aluminium
tundra.
- The Atlantic below neither
calling nor repelling,
- entirely unknown. The plane
casting no shadow. The clouds
- adrift in an oddly unmoving
air
- courteous as dancers at the
court of Louis Quatorze
- in their pouffed gowns,
bewigged in white,
- orderly, formal, the
clouds
- watching their own reflections
in the crumpled mirror of the sea.
- And the sea below whitening.
The sea ahead always more blue.
- The plane moving always towards
but never into the blue.
-
- I'm going home.
-
- Seven days away from the claims
of little hands.
- Seven days rising at my body's
own hour, walking
- at my body's own pace,
talking
- with strangers (Never talk to
strangers)
- drinking wine, staying up late
(Go to bed! It's past your bedtime)
- leaving the strange bits on my
plate, lardons,
- abattis de canard,
museaux,
- eating dessert without
finishing my dinner.
- Drinking wine - so much
wine
- I am tête en l'air,
l'air
- si bleu
-
- but nobody minds.
-
- Seven days to relearn my
reflexes, smell
- my own smells, saunter, stroll,
march, run, walk
- at my own pace
- Seven days of grace.
-
- And when shall we meet again,
friends
- briefly met in a strange
city?
- Next time on a mountain, in
snuffed boots, under the olives.
- Next time in the casbah,
haggIing over threadbare carpets.
- Next time by that pink branch
of coral, the big one to the left
- where the neon fish flicker,
turning all at once
- like motorcycles at the Place
de la Concorde
- like laughter traversing a
garden of poets
Susan
Glickman
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