Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

To Melancholia, Mon Amour by Nancy Naomi Carlson

Because I want to leave you
something beautiful, I will dye
these sheaves of silk blood red.
You’ll see them billow and rise between pairs
of stage hands— Handel’s Israel in Egypt—
parting the sea as easy as stripping a bed.
 
I will make of these plagues a tapestry
thick with must and the pale infusion of moon,
or better still, a double choir—for beasts and boils,
frogs and diamonds of hail.
 
Let me go, and I’ll rosin my bow for the whirr of flies,
or the wheels of your chariot in pursuit—
stallions black as the growing dark—
or my strings unstrung, straining like locust wings.

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