you say . I don't know even your real name
or why I am pleading like this,
but
OK-
What I want is a home you'll visit often, even
in my absence, like rain through rotted roofbeams.
In the hallway of painful ends, we will cry out for
and curse one another assured of some further descent.
That's my offer. Take it or let me alone:
a love which passeth understanding,
we can gnaw each other to the bone .
I'll be at the fountain off Rue Val-de-Grace .
A footpath of sky through the chestnut trees
will lead you to me, to them - four maidens drenched
to the skin who buckle each night shouldering
the world . You can hear them praying,
let it be
done.
Yet in the morning, somehow,
they've raised it back up again.
David St. John
AN ESSAY ON LIBERATION
He stood naked at one of the two windows
She kept open in all weathers in her
Corner room at the back of the old building
As the sun rose he watched a man
Dragging a handcart along the narrow alley below
&
across the court a young boy was turning
His face from side to side in a freckled mirror
From the temples in the old section of the city
He could hear the first sequence
Of morning prayers
&
to the west he could see
