We were tuned like two crystal sets to the race stations
where we heard the saxophones of the Black Zion.

In the dark we crossed the borders of the Caucasus

A tiny blemish where the sun-
glasses touch his cheek. It will fade.
From the corner of each eye, uneven notches

You are my flower, my lips, my heaven.
Embrace in your glance the seven grains.
I bear them, until I collapse.

Three men on scaffolding scatter corn flakes down
For people to see in black-and-white as snow,
Falling around the actor under the lights.

 1

There is an uncertain territory
between night and day.
It is neither light nor shadow:

Three years after my father’s death
he goes back to work. Unemployed
for 25 years, he’s very glad to be

A windfall of raucous jeers
swirls down on my bent head.
Earth burns, slant shadows

When you were born
I was a small child in a bad time
and even if somebody had brought me news of you
I might not have believed them

The world is not aweather
for that moment. My brother
is painting a Sunday picture

The stars have gone north, abandoning the city
For this wilderness that is mine, if only for a time,
Long enough to learn the language of the leaves before