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wise words
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What is the difference between genius and stupidity? Genius has limits. - Albert Einstein.
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| Alex Stolis |
9/5/02 |
Leaning into Afternoon
Emily ends her sentences in ellipses,
walks two degrees
toward Wednesday,
her mouth urges a concrete sky
through scarred gates.
Devereaux Street is film-noir,
she trades ribbons
for locks of honey-spotted hair,
Davis hollows a blade of grass
stubborn reservoir pulls
his eyes north.
Black hair
combed across the sill
entices sparrows
to forget their names.
Thursday,
she packs stillness
in tissue paper.
Candy-Apple Grey
I peel stars
from the wall, string
passages like a necklace
around Lara's waist,
write her name in India ink
on humid steps.
Alphabet rumors
fall down her shoulders,
paints imaginary postmarks
on her mouth.
I erase train tracks
with borrowed letters.
Passages
I've been in love once she said,
when afternoons were spiked with gray suns
we shared orange pekoe from a paper cup
dried our hands on borrowed time,
it was a whisper played on the radio.
We stole pictures of summer from round women
brushed handfuls of tears from their hair
bartered with the earth poured from our eyes
for letters written in dust on Mesabi Avenue,
make-up streaked from drops of Lake Superior,
small reminders of magenta moons carved
in the grass where we made love.
The city stood to hide our hands behind
its back, covering our mouths with dry leaves,
we swallowed shadows as communion,
heads bent in pretend prayer as God
lifted two sparrows from the nest of his pocket.
As Young As We Ever Got
(For Michi on her Wedding)
Sunburned autumn fills a shadow
in the hollow of Emily's back ,
a portrait drawn in charcoal
left in Belgium, or maybe Italy
where we drank shiraz,
gave a ten year old boy 20Lira,
snapped pictures of strangers.
We climb a train divided by boredom,
roll through Portugal as rain frames
her lips around a cloud,
opens a book of wet pages. We take
communion in winter near an altar
that looks vaguely marble but bends
at the sound of her voice,
the young priest slips on her words,
it marks one more country, one more train,
one last time she wears silence like a loose fitting dress
that seems transparent when she dances.
In Barcelona I watch a white crow
pick at shadows pinned to furrows
that zig-zag across a field;
it sketches a map of seas,
an island of clay on my cheek.
© alex stolis 2002
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