The Rain Has Made Me Late To Work

by J. S. A. Lowe

this morning     washed      so that fragrances      rise while
you     inconceivable sleep curled up wise bud in my
bed      and I     incredulous     pedal the hill to this day     my
work     facing dusty stacks     with a secret     small music
called maybe     your face     could unfurl for me     later

but now     is the time when     happiest     I should be writing
poems     and indeed     they stir around     in here     it may be the
time having come to them     or they     to her     the ideas
arriving to someone     it has just     occurred to me     I grab
a yellow pad     hide in the shelves     instead     sweet letter.

 

(AGNI 50)

J.S.A. Lowe is managing editor at Partisan Review. She has studied at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Cambridge, and Boston University She is working on a series of translations from the nineteenth-century French lyric poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. (1999)