July 14, 2009

Awkward Bystander

She separates herself
from a thousand rules
and waits in the margin,
unstable turf
where religion ends
and politics begins.

He's thinking of his life,
his anger, his sorrow--
the colors of annihilation,
black and white and red
smeared on canvas--
art, a product of the lost.

What's real: blood
and birth and memory
endlessly repeats itself,
rising and falling;
looping binds the edges.

She kneels before him.
It seems wrong.
She's from another world.
He doesn't believe in her gods.
Maybe I misunderstand.

2 comments:

Paul said...

I'm scared to comment now cos I keep getting the time line wrong, so I will just say over and over you are a fabulous poet. Much better than you give yourself credit for. This is a fantastic poem which uses the openness of its imagery to produce an echoing tone which gives the emotional context to the relationship without having to use events to describe it and so on.

Agnes said...

It's new. The umbilical booger hasn't even fallen off yet.