Should the painful condition of irreversible paralysis 
last longer than forever or at least until 

are not comfortable beside mine. On the bus,
pulled forward by gentle inertia,
a hundred of us sway, or sigh, is that it,
what we do in the moment, in that air
that is too cool. Listen,
I want to say to you, dear heart,
imperfect flesh, blue eyes,
abused elbow and plaintive knees—
listen, I want to breathe in
the world that is falling apart.
I am too old to learn
your name in any language
other than this one. I am

One may wish to slaughter or to save the bull—but first one must master the cape. With the politics I differ; for the man I feel nothing but love. Without him I might never have been a poet. His esthetic discoveries were powerful enough to enable me to dispute with him to the death in an arena where the combat is eternal: the arena of poetry.

Juan Garcia

*

Water, with lidless stare,
Invites a cool surmise,
Holds there his curious eyes,

The ice plant is not in flower:
it extends, a springy floor

over the rocks and the sand

The traveler struggles through a wood. He is lost.
The traveler is at home. He never left.
He seeks his way on the conflicting trails,

Look, in the attic, the unentered room,
A naked boy leans on the outspread knees
Of his tall brother lolling in costume,

My body trots semblably
on Market Street. I control
the singular spy from my

One night I reached a cave: I slept, my head
Full of the air. There came about daybreak
A red-coat soldier to the mouth who said

Lictor or heavy slave would wear it best,
The robe of uncapricious Emperor,
Waging a profitable war, at least