Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Barely there, if at all,
the one that got away,
semi-French,
against the wall,
it’s only air where art
could have been; the stroke
of seconds that slip between
what is night, and what
might be a dream.
Maybe she was a student
who never had to pose again;
a doctor’s patient never seen.
Half invisible, half known,
barely mysterious, just
browning greys, greens.
A face that happens
to remain, almost a boy –
because to form is to decide
only the name
makes her a girl, and even then,
she looks past that decision.
She looks:
she has a bare face. It is a body
that’s undone. Whatever
didn’t happen happened
for a reason, or none;
imagination’s lost address,
a day the umbrella stayed at home
and wasn’t needed
when it failed to rain;
the time the prayer was unsaid
at the graveside
of the passerby in the lane
quick and never dead.
She isn’t quite alive,
but that’s the same with most paint.
Her being fractional
makes her heart beat fainter;
at least it’s possible to hear
her breath out-gathering
like a song one ought to know
but can’t quite place
on the mirror she kept in
her purse on the day
she almost came
to Whistler’s studio.
This site is designed and maintained by GONECASE