Burning the Water Hyacinth
We flame the river
to keep the boat paths open
your eyes eat my shadow
at the light line
touchless
completing each other's need
to yearn
to settle into hunger
faceless
a waning moon.
Plucking desire
from my palms
like the firehairs of a cactus
I know this appetite
the greed of a poet
or an empty woman
trying to touch
what matters.
from Our Dead Behind Us by Audre Lorde copyright 1986
2 comments:
The need to yearn is the essential need of the poet, I think. It seems to me poets stand on the edge or on the periphery of things and look in; the longing to be in is so often the heart of a poem.
I enjoy your work.
I love Audre Lorde. Her book Zami is on my reading list for 2008.
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