Who knows you? Who remembers you?

But in your house a ritual is in progress:

it is not finished: it needs more people.

One day the door is opened to the lovers’ chambers.

The room has become a dense garden,

full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known.

The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,

in the midst of the garden it stands alone.

In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,

perform the act of love.

Their eyes are closed,

as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them.

Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.

His hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.

When he puts his mouth against her shoulder

she is uncertain whether her shoulder

has given or received the kiss.

All her flesh is like a mouth.

He carries his fingers along her waist

and feels his own waist caressed.

She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her.

She kisses the hand beside her mouth.

It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,

there are so many more kisses.

You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,

you carefully peel away the sheets

from the slow-moving bodies.

Your eyes are filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers.

As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent

because now you believe it is the first human voice

heard in that room.

The garments you let fall grow into vines.

You climb into bed and recover the flesh.

You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.

You create an embrace and fall into it.

There is only one moment of pain or doubt

as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body,

but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.

—from The Spice-Box of Earth, 1961

THE POEMS DON’T LOVE US ANY MORE

The poems don’t love us any more

they don’t want to love us

they don’t want to be poems

Do not summon us, they say

We can’t help you any longer

There’s no more fishing

in the Big Hearted River

Leave us alone

We are becoming something new

They have gone back into the world

to be with the ones

who labour with their total bodies

who have no plans for the world

They never were entertainers

I live on a river in Miami

under conditions I cannot describe

I see them sometimes

half-rotted half-born

surrounding a muscle

like a rolled-up sleeve

lying down in their jelly

to make love with the tooth of a saw

—from The Energy of Slaves, 1972

ON HEARING A NAME LONG UNSPOKEN

Listen to the stories

men tell of last year

that sound of other places

though they happened here

Listen to a name