ADELA SINCLAIR
Poetry
NEW BY
ADELA SINCLAIR
We touch roots
Drops of water brought me your voice,
determined to explain on slippery terrain.
The earth beneath asks me to bequeath
safety.
You catch your breath, pull mine into you.
How can I let you decide for two?
Surprised at my légèreté d'être,
the laughter that escapes, needs no crater
to be filled with explanation.
I am not in control, but I still hold
destined hands.
Our four sensory possessed treasures
allow the moon to peek into our caresses.
You undress me and we take pleasure
in this cosmic intersection.
Apology for prodigy
For Charles Simic
I slimmed down all over,
a panther.
I lived to smell the food words
on their breaths.
All my family, carnivores, fragile.
It was a long summer
under the spoken fury,
a graveyard for cousins,
uncles and aunts,
scoured man-loves.
An old man told me how to dwell.
The way forward is all around
the number 8.
In the house
their masticating sounded
round the clock,
a chanting which bared
my soul of hunger pains.
The cook was missing,
I, the submissive
had to be approved.
That summer
I whitened the faces of the cast
with mortar from the basement.
To feed the hungry you must wait,
speak to livestock slowly,
break necks in one sweep,
allow no smell from your carnage.
A.S.
Russian Connection
for Anna Akhmatova
His words,
muffled snores
cut the thread of poetry –
her poetry and mine,
leaving behind a dotted line,
black minuses of shadows passed
on white sheets of forgiveness.
A.S.
The feminine might bend the light
When I enter into yellow,
the curves’ shadows
decorate the wall.
In the dark, your visiting hands
press urgently my matter,
mold cells to fit
your palms.
The sweat trickles on
my skin,
truth streams
in between our
bodies.
The question in my mind is:
What reaction will you have
if I take liberty
to taste this and that of you?
Slowing,
surrendering,
the only rhythm I hear now
is you calling my name
again and again.
The safety of knowing
the dark exists
to surround us in this love
that breaks down walls,
camps down the street
eats, breathes horizons,
feasts on the promise
that the sun rises and
with the light
the feminine might.