—for John Berryman
The noise of morning rises with the cream of dawn:
it is I who opens the gate to Samael,
it is I who finds window glass wanting,
it is I who no longer wishes to wait,
it is I who seek entrance with Thyone.
Can no one help?
Can no one see?
Why is it I am left?
This is how cream degrades in heat,
how milk curdles into sour frowns
how we are taken away from those we seek.
No matter. I find a fog within fog,
a pathway of crows
swimming birds,
the silver outline of tarpons
a crease in water.
| Copyright © 2022 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
As an editor, I would incline to make the verb number of these two lines agree:
ReplyDelete“it is I who no longer wishes to wait,
it is I who seek entrance with Thyone.”
But as a reader of your poetry, I trust that you intentionally say “who wishes” (singular) in the first line and then “who seek” (plural) in the second. But what you mean to say or suggest by that still escapes me….