(first)

It is hard to sleep with his body
in the way, atemporally

bloated with past easy sleep
and his bones, cloister arcs

with their visible chill
shields for tender beginnings

and his skin, wormy and underwatered
like a dead person's skin.

Maybe skin dies first and obvious
as a kind of reminder

a visit to the Winter
Garden in July

 

 

 

 

 

(second)

His brain I think is breaking over there
his, yours

Light comes later and violent
planted among the hollyhocks

adjectives pruned
clipped conjunctions

We followed the rules
of cultivation

A sentence grows into the shape
of the thought that contains it

or breaks it
or is broken

 

Copyright © Anna Moschovakis, 2005.

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Anna Moschovakis works with the Ugly Duckling Presse collective as an editor, book and web designer, and letterpress printer. She also translates from French, and has published translations of Gautier, Michaux and Cendrars, among others. She has a pamphlet, The Blue Book from Phylum Press (2005), and a first full-length collection due in 2006. A doctoral student in Comparative Literature at City University New York, she teaches at Queens College.