Kalemegdan

The old fortress is a gathering place
Where a brick rampart recasts its shadow,
Builds and rebuilds that familiar embrace. 

Wanderers choose the same paths to retrace
Or study the Sava flowing below;
The old fortress is a gathering place. 

A happening folds again and again over space
And, despite changes we undergo,
Builds and rebuilds that familiar embrace. 

Sun beams reveal the city's summer face:
Bright, green, benches full, cups of espresso.
The old fortress is a gathering place. 

My favorite part, the park's heart, will remain
How the old plane led by her wind-maestro
Builds and rebuilds that familiar embrace. 

Weather the stone walls may slowly efface,
But for all bodies, seasons, violent throes
The fortress is a gathering place,
Built and rebuilt in that familiar embrace. 

07.25

Daydreaming

I think of you as I dream
Of you—effortlessly, without fear, 

Unashamed that I am invisible
To your mind's eye, 

Darkness unilluminated
By your lighthouse-heart, 

A faded impression in a field
Grown over by switchgrass. 

My garden holds a singular flower;
You rise, its glowing pistil,
Above innumerable petals,

A center that multiplies
Irrespective of limits, 

Because I think of you
As I dream—childlike, 

Innocent in passion,
Sincere in devotion. 

And never would I dream
Of asking the same of you.

07.25

Blue Door

Footfalls echo in hardwood halls,
Just passing through this place
Adorned with portals, worlds
Man-made but no less true 

Than the nature I remember:
Turbid creeks tucked away
In forest-miniatures built
At margins of suburbs. 

Midwest dead is a reflection
Softened by some distance,
Brushing up against new beauty—
Natural and man-handled. 

Whatever the case, I escaped.
Places inhabit me,
Internal portals awaiting
The glance, the finger tip 

Touch to reopen the passage,
To release the sea breeze
Or roadtrips or belly laughter
Or people I will love forever.

So I have come to the gallery,
Myself full of hinges and doors,
To peek into the depths others'
Heart spaces. Are they shaped the same? 

Revolving through golden cities,
Hills draped in green, glittery seas
Dotted with white dinghies,
I am an observer. 

Until I arrive at the door:
Blue, set in a white frame,
White walls, ajar. Yellow light falls
On the steps where we sit. 

Bottlenecks clink glasses; I hear
Laughter opening up
Like sugar packets. Us two girls
With the blue door open 

Live in halcyon days, colors
An assemblage of bright,
Deep and inexplicable blues
Until a tear cleaves 

One door in two, and it's daytime.
Languid beams of sun rest
On those steps. Where I imagined
Us, spiral dark green vines. 

You will forgive me for not calling
Because I thought of you
In that hall adorned with portals,
Where glances, finger tip 

Touches send weights ricocheting,
Rattle in ribcages,
Carve indelible grooves slowly
As water wears stone smooth.


07.25

Reflection

In the big mirror, I see
Long nursed fears
Bunch, cling like magnets
Rearrange skin
Towards opposite ends. 

In the big mirror, I am
Accidental,
Netted together by parts
Inconsequential as chemical pulls
Activate the heart. 

In the big mirror, I want
To hold me still,
So still this rowdy machine
Like marble cools down
To beauty immovable. 

But there is motion
Unrelenting in the big mirror:
Micro-vibrations,
Flutters, sudden dilations
Compound massive movements 

Whose incalculable sums
Or simple errors
Rendered in the big mirror
Become a foreign system:
Indeterminate, me. 

The certainty of uncertainty
Is a crushing reality.
I am trapped
Somewhere—in the big mirror
Must be the map. 

Gridlocked, broken glass,
I am in all this blood
Nowhere locatable:
Body, machine, mind, nothing
Of me in the big mirror. 

07.25

Parts

I love you like the earth loves the sun,
Like trees love the summer wind
For making their bodies music,
Like a drop of rain loves
Finding its beloved sea again.
You are my sea, my wind, my sun,
And above all, you are
One of one.

10.24