He Loves the Rain by Shinji Moon
I think we all speak a diferent kind o language than each other, but you sound a whole lot like cofee on a Sunday morning and the rain is alling bitter against the windowpane and your elbows are making holes in the countertops, and I only want to tell you that I wish I was as close as the threads o your
t-shirt, and i I can’t be that, then I’ll be content with drinking my drink beside you, with the rain sloppy open mouth kissing the roo, trying to dismantle the etymology o a conversation that alls out o the realm o words.
1.
“Sonnet XVII,” Pablo Neruda
2.
“The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart,” Jack ilbert
3.
“That !o"antic Sun#et,” $aura Van Van Sl%ke
4.
“&ountain De' (o""ercial Di#gui#ed a# a $o)e Poe",” &atthe' *l+"ann
5.
“Pri)ilege of eing,” !obert Ha##
6.
“Photogra-h,” !obert Ha##
7.
“(olli#ion Theor%,” &art% &c(onnell
8.
“Plea#e &o)e To Ver"ont and reak &% Heart,” regor% Sherl
9.
“The Four &oon Planet,” ill% (ollin#
10.
“Schehera+ade,” !ichard Siken
11.
“The (inna"on Peeler.# /ife,” &ichael *ndaat0e
1. Sonnet !"II,# $ablo %eruda I do not love you as i you were salt-rose, or topa&, or the arrow o carnations the 're shoots of. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itsel the light o hidden (owers) thanks to your love a certain solid ragrance, risen rom the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or rom where. I love you straightorwardly, without comple*ities or pride) so I love you because I know no other way than this+ where I does not e*ist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I all asleep.
. he orgotten /ialect o the 0eart,# ack 2ilbert 0ow astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and rightening that it does not 3uite. 4ove, we say, 2od, we say, 5ome and 6ichiko, we write, and the words get it all wrong. 7e say bread and it means according to which nation. rench has no word or home, and we have no word or strict pleasure. 8 people in northern India is dying out because their ancient tongue has no words or endearment. I dream o lost vocabularies that might e*press some o what we no longer can. 6aybe the 9truscan te*ts would 'nally e*plain why the couples on their tombs are smiling. 8nd maybe not. 7hen the thousands o mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they seemed to be business records. :ut what i they are poems or psalms; 6y s labor. 0er breasts are si* white o*en loaded with bolts o long-'bered 9gyptian cotton. 6y love is a hundred pitchers o honey. Shiploads o thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. 2irafes are this
desire in the dark. $erhaps the spiral 6inoan script is not laguage but a map. 7hat we eel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.
?. hat 5omantic Sunset,# 4aura "an Slyke I remember you said something like, the sun doesn’t set anywhere unless it sets in ucson,# that dusk when we sat on the hood o my car, olded into each other like the specks o white inside the stitches o denim
@. 6ountain /ew Aommercial /isguised as a 4ove $oem,# 6atthew =l&mann 0ere’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage might work+ :ecause you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. :ecause you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own
E. $rivilege o :eing,# 5obert 0ass 6any are making love. Fp above, the angels in the unshaken ether and crystal o human longing are braiding one another>s hair, which is strawberry blond and the te*ture o cold rivers. hey glance down rom time to time at the awkward ecstasy--
it must look to them like eatherless birds splashing in the spring puddle o a bed-and then one woman, she is about to come, peels back the man>s shut eyelids and says, look at me, and he does. =r is it the man tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater; 8nyway, they do, they look at each other) two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious, startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet lubricious glue, stare at each other, and the angels are desolate. hey hate it. hey shudder pathetically like lithographs o "ictorian beggars with perect eatures and alabaster skin hawking rags in the lewd alleys o the novel. 8ll o creation is ofended by this distress. It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes, rising. he lovers especially cannot bear it, it 'lls them with unspeakable sadness, so that they close their eyes again and hold each other, each eeling the mortal singularity o the body they have enchanted out o death or an hour or so, and one day, running at sunset, the woman says to the man, I woke up eeling so sad this morning because I reali&ed that you could not, as much as I love you, dear heart, cure my loneliness, wherewith she touched his cheek to reassure him that she did not mean to hurt him with this truth. 8nd the man is not hurt e*actly, he understands that lie has limits, that people die young, ail at love, ail o their ambitions. 0e runs beside her, he thinks o the sadness they have gasped and crooned their way out o coming, clutching each other with old, invented
orms o grace and clumsy gratitude, ready to be alone again, or dissatis'ed, or merely companionable like the couples on the summer beach reading maga&ine articles about intimacy between the se*es to themselves, and to each other, and to the immense, illiterate, consoling angels. G. $hotograph,# 5obert 0ass
H. Aollision heory,# 6arty 6cAonnell I swear she kissed me 'rst, but I have no evidence. I know the wine danced in the glass like a siren, all lean in and slow blink, I know the magnets in my palms spun until keys (ung themselves toward us rom all directions. con
in layman’s terms, the scientist said I really can>t do a good
. $lease 6ove o "ermont and :reak 6y 0eart,# 2regory Sherl I am writing a book on how to write a book so I can learn how to properly e*plain why you look better with the lights on. I listen to a song but it doesn’t mention your name so I stop listening to the song. Bour heart is noise pop. 7hite noise is ghosts missing the streamers that all rom your ears while you sing in the car. "ermont is not ar i you are already in "ermont. 6y cat looks at me and then walks away. 0e is named either ater a amous musician or a body o water. here are so many words I reuse to learn how to spell. Still, I spell check your thighs ater I bend you over my desk. I spell check the inside o your let ear while you bite yoursel on the kitchen table. $rostrate. oday I am writing in grunts, I am playing in onts. 6y chest hair is si&e @@ Aomic Sans. 6y eyebrows are whittled away beore I leave the mall. I have sat under the same sun as you or E years. Sometimes I have walked under the same sun as you. =nce, I played tennis under the same sun as you. 5epetition sun. Staccato sun. 7rinkled sun. I tell your skin that covers your clavicle 7e’ve got at
least E? more years o holding hands on a bench under the same sun. he se3uel to this poem is ohn Ausack holding a boombo* over his head under barely any sun. act+ I want to kiss your nose even when I’m not inside you.
J. he our 6oon $lanet,# :illy Aollins I have envied the our-moon planet. -he %otebooks o 5obert rost
6aybe he was thinking o the song K7hat a 4ittle 6oonlight Aan doK and became curious about what a lot o moonlight might be capable o. :ut wouldn>t this be too much o a good thing; and what i you couldn>t tell them apart and they always rose together like pale 3uadruplets entering a living room; Bes, there would be enough light to read a book or write a letter at midnight, and i you drank enough te3uila you might see eight o them roving brightly above. :ut think o the two lovers on a beach, his arm around her bare shoulder, thrilled at how close they were eeling tonight while he ga&ed at one moon and she another. 1L. Schehera&ade,# 5ichard Siken ell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out o the lake and dress them in warm clothes again. 0ow it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running until they orget that they are horses. It>s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere, it>s more like a song on a policeman>s radio, how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple to slice into pieces. 4ook at the light through the windowpane. hat means it>s noon, that means we>re inconsolable.
ell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. hese, our bodies, possessed by light. ell me we>ll never get used to it. 11. he Ainnamon $eeler’s 7ie,# 6ichael =ndaat
or the missing perume. and knew what good is it to be the lime burner’s daughter let with no trace as i not spoken to in an act o love as i wounded without the pleasure o scar. Bou touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler’s wie. Smell me.
