Calotype
Dear woman, we both have had our fill of trials.
The Odyssey, 23.394 (trans. Robert Fagles)
I only thought it, but you turned to me
as if I’d said aloud Come here
where I can hurt you
and this sounded good enough to you.
Not for kindness or strength,
or wisdom or grace,
or beauty or duty or truth,
my parents named me Grecianly
for joy. And when you say
my name I feel taller
the way I do in the flat-bed middle of the country,
terrified but here.
We are all already here:
the bats in their gloaming, groping flight
not blind but finding
with sound the shape of what’s before them
which is why I’m talking to you now
and I know
there are always bats in my poems for you
and I’m sorry
but when you put your mouth
because I asked you
in the deepest hollow of my collarbone
like I could hold water
there I think maybe I can if I try
I feel that way
about most things.
I don’t know what it is
I’m not telling you
but I swear I’m trying now.
My plow and stars,
my ambulance in traffic,
my anapest always,
my lightfast ink,
pain is property.
Remember that.
Come here.
