← v11n1, Spring 2012
Poetry · Volume 11, Number 1

And Night Illuminated the Night

I watch you holding one cut stem,

three thorns, no blossom—

night, a shade of red

your teeth trace on my lips.

Everything I touch and all I am

is thirsting.

When the rain falls

it won’t ask who you are—

a statue, or the blind man

who sees by feeling.

Rain won’t forgive us,

it doesn’t know our names.