Borrowed Love Poems
1
What can I do, I have dreamed of you so much
What can I do, lost as I am in the sky
What can I do, now that all
the doors and windows are open
I will whisper this in your ear
as if it were a rough draft
something I scribbled on a napkin
I have dreamed of you so much
there is no time left to write
no time left on the sundial
for my shadow to fall back to the earth
lost as I am in the sky
2
What can I do, all the years that we talked
and I was afraid to want more
What can I do, now that these hours
belong to neither you nor me
Lost as I am in the sky
What can I do, now that I cannot find
the words I need
when your hair is mine
now that there is no time to sleep
now that your name is not enough
3
What can I do, if a red meteor wakes the earth
and the color of robbery is in the air
Now that I dream of you so much
my lips are like clouds
drifting above the shadow of one who is asleep
Now that the moon is enthralled with a wall
What can I do, if one of us is lying on the earth
and the other is lost in the sky
4
What can I do, lost as I am in the wind
and lightning that surrounds you
What can I do, now that my tears
are rising toward the sky
only to fall back
into the sea again
What can I do, now that this page is wet
now that this pen is empty
5
What can I do, now that the sky
has shut its iron door
and bolted clouds
to the back of the moon
now that the wind
has diverted the ocean’s attention
now that a red meteor
has plunged into the lake
now that I am awake
now that you have closed the book
6
Now that the sky is green
and the air is red with rain
I never stood in
the shadow of pyramids
I never walked from village to village
in search of fragments
that had fallen to earth in another age
What can I do, now that we have collided
on a cloudless night
and sparks rise
from the bottom of a thousand lakes
7
To some, the winter sky is a blue peach
teeming with worms
and the clouds are growing thick
with sour milk
What can I do, now that the fat black sea
is seething
now that I have refused to return
my borrowed dust to the butterflies
their wings full of yellow flour
8
What can I do, I never believed happiness
could be premeditated
What can I do, having argued with the obedient world
that language will infiltrate its walls
What can I do, now that I have sent you
a necklace of dead dried bees
and now that I want to
be like the necklace
and turn flowers into red candles
pouring from the sun
9
What can I do, now that I have spent my life
studying the physics of good-bye
every velocity and particle in all the waves
undulating through the relapse of a moment’s fission
now that I must surrender this violin
to the sea’s foaming black tongue
now that January is almost here
and I have started celebrating a completely different life
10
Now that the seven wonders of the night
have been stolen by history
Now that the sky is lost and the stars
have slipped into a book
Now that the moon is boiling
like the blood where it swims
Now that there are no blossoms left
to glue to the sky
What can I do,
I who never invented anything
and who dreamed of you so much
I was amazed to discover
the claw marks of those
who preceded us across this burning floor
#AmericanWriters Brooklyn Rail, Rutgers University at teaches
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