Eileen Tabios, "Tercets from The Book of Revelation"
TERCETS FROM THE BOOK OF REVELATION
after Rupert Thomson's The Book of Revelation
(i)
How does the air
come to pulse
like a muscle
As if your scent
lingers
before your arrival
How does the night
come to press
and smother
As if a fresh wound
must accompany
a revelation
Church bells ring
over a dark street
to fracture glass
Or was it a childhood
memory evoking
how light becomes distant
A fine, silvery mist
descends
on a wall, a city
You reach me
by penetrating past
a train's smoke and whistle
Damp hair clings
to the nape
of your neck
How can the cause
for an absence
lose relevance
How many stories
do we deny
to obviate recitation
How do we pretend
no boats mutter
along the salted, wet dock
How did I give up
your child
for an imagined affair
A pine forest
breathes for me
behind an empty house
He looked happy
before meeting
a burglary's intimacy
You can each me
by noticing how trees
shiver by the edge of a road
How a sun
flattens the water
of a gray canal
How does release
from what you love
become "unequivocal freedom"
Sunglasses hang
against her breastbone
from a silver chain
No limits surround
the purple sheen
to Montenegro liles
Afterwards
why do you never
hold me
How do I find
the necessary vein
I must mine
(ii)
How does one see
significance
in brackets studding a wall
Or be claimed
through a stranger's
tatoo
"I want to see you
again to know
I was not dreaming"
A church, a girl, a cloud,
a fragmented tune--of what
are they coordinates
Children cluster
within a tree's branches
like birds, fruit, pollen
A shirt cuff
so white
it forms an independent image
It has never been
my desire for men
to take second place
I always wake
before the alarm clock
begins to irradiate
A man weeps tonight
with the father
of a schizophrenic son
How does one offend
by innocently asking
"Are you happy?
In Zanibar
fruit bats
fragment a room's dimness
Upon meeting, you
knew to suggest
"Alchemy needs your silence"
Wildflowers override
the trenches
of a battlefield
There are days when
the world's kindness
forgives pastis imbibed at zinc bars
A man blows a saxophone
until the moon
turns to butter
To approximate immortality
through the art
of doing nothing
Buying stories
I cannot reveal
within those I can
Her hair offers
the scent of firecrackers
reaching for the Milky Way
"Put it in
me now,"
she whispers
When he wants
to protect me
he holds my wrist
The air pulses
like a muscle
attentive and fraught
EILEEN TABIOS
after Rupert Thomson's The Book of Revelation
(i)
How does the air
come to pulse
like a muscle
As if your scent
lingers
before your arrival
How does the night
come to press
and smother
As if a fresh wound
must accompany
a revelation
Church bells ring
over a dark street
to fracture glass
Or was it a childhood
memory evoking
how light becomes distant
A fine, silvery mist
descends
on a wall, a city
You reach me
by penetrating past
a train's smoke and whistle
Damp hair clings
to the nape
of your neck
How can the cause
for an absence
lose relevance
How many stories
do we deny
to obviate recitation
How do we pretend
no boats mutter
along the salted, wet dock
How did I give up
your child
for an imagined affair
A pine forest
breathes for me
behind an empty house
He looked happy
before meeting
a burglary's intimacy
You can each me
by noticing how trees
shiver by the edge of a road
How a sun
flattens the water
of a gray canal
How does release
from what you love
become "unequivocal freedom"
Sunglasses hang
against her breastbone
from a silver chain
No limits surround
the purple sheen
to Montenegro liles
Afterwards
why do you never
hold me
How do I find
the necessary vein
I must mine
(ii)
How does one see
significance
in brackets studding a wall
Or be claimed
through a stranger's
tatoo
"I want to see you
again to know
I was not dreaming"
A church, a girl, a cloud,
a fragmented tune--of what
are they coordinates
Children cluster
within a tree's branches
like birds, fruit, pollen
A shirt cuff
so white
it forms an independent image
It has never been
my desire for men
to take second place
I always wake
before the alarm clock
begins to irradiate
A man weeps tonight
with the father
of a schizophrenic son
How does one offend
by innocently asking
"Are you happy?
In Zanibar
fruit bats
fragment a room's dimness
Upon meeting, you
knew to suggest
"Alchemy needs your silence"
Wildflowers override
the trenches
of a battlefield
There are days when
the world's kindness
forgives pastis imbibed at zinc bars
A man blows a saxophone
until the moon
turns to butter
To approximate immortality
through the art
of doing nothing
Buying stories
I cannot reveal
within those I can
Her hair offers
the scent of firecrackers
reaching for the Milky Way
"Put it in
me now,"
she whispers
When he wants
to protect me
he holds my wrist
The air pulses
like a muscle
attentive and fraught
EILEEN TABIOS