04-25-2017, 02:48 PM
Jane Bowles
If I could still write it would be you
Cherifa. You in the black niqab
and sunglasses, you in my bed,
wanton as Tangier’s cracked black nights.
My tropical illness. Fever, the room fills
with bugs, bats; parasitical elevators
lead to suffering, wild-imp-nervous
the water. The impossibility of salvation.
Spells and blood in the houseplants.
Small skeletons and knots. Is this poison?
I shall suffer.
Utter detachment, starvation in the sheltering
sky, babyish, injured, brash pain, self-indulged
decadence, more gin, more kif. The Indian
trying not to look at me.
For years, Paul, for years and years I forged
my own hammer and nails.
You eclipsed me.
If I could still write it would be you
Cherifa. You in the black niqab
and sunglasses, you in my bed,
wanton as Tangier’s cracked black nights.
My tropical illness. Fever, the room fills
with bugs, bats; parasitical elevators
lead to suffering, wild-imp-nervous
the water. The impossibility of salvation.
Spells and blood in the houseplants.
Small skeletons and knots. Is this poison?
I shall suffer.
Utter detachment, starvation in the sheltering
sky, babyish, injured, brash pain, self-indulged
decadence, more gin, more kif. The Indian
trying not to look at me.
For years, Paul, for years and years I forged
my own hammer and nails.
You eclipsed me.