Two Poems by Barry Schwabsky
Mar 22, 2021 12:50 PMLicking River
I lick the pollen from the nooks and crannies of your voice
it had settled there in anticipation
the wind shifts direction like a verse
you once impressed on my lips
before I touched them to the mirror
and looked to find your secret name there
a woman who broke her eyes by crying
niche empath cutie
and all the stars barricaded inside your skull
looking with the third eye
all signs point to yes
nothing matters more to me than this
come to me, come into my army
Broken-Wing Display
(In memory of Sean Bonney)
The sun on its way out of there
horizon forced to give up its secret
the last word on the majesty of the sexes
—and your most recent bird
the black seed from which a whole sky is born
whose words are our most remote ancestors
their syllables collapse into heaps of silence
a dozen pockets where you never find your keys
echoes multiply in the locked box where you store them
like a heart filled with laughter
your broken teeth tore to pieces
—
Barry Schwabsky is art critic for The Nation. His most recent book of poetry is Trembling Hand Equilibrium (Black Square Editions, 2015). A new collection will be published, also by Black Square, in 2021.