| T'bilisi |
T'bilisi
I
Tellemacus was never here. But now
a coin I could never spend is large. My
tongue and my message ran ahead in the wind
to a valley where rising smoke hangs flat.
I never saw the eyes turn down from snow,
from low, small-breasted mountains to a
stranger's face - what smoke I made at the mouth:
sirens all broken empires hunger's hear.
My riches are my country and it will
remember me in exile where I have lived
when I was every country's mother tongue
and all tongues praised by my measure.
II
My passions are spent without science; and
some that run away are searched, raised up each
a smoke on lips as twins, seconds, small razor
edged choice. I learn there is no age before
hunger - and nothing is enough before
it can be worked - diamond clear gods enter
my boat, walking past treasures they neither
see nor sense. Terror has a perfect science;
love imitates the spider's mating suicide.
Put away your gods for a time, all your
long held virginities, and ride a cunning
tongue so many roads up and down in me
one day new marriage beds, some lost at sea.
III
I told my story, the list of my ancestors
omitting no adornment and some shame,
the day I must leave and the name of my home
unpronounced to their ears but catching at my
words their whole wish, "I go to great Cyclops".
And it was enough for their heart's poverty,
enough for a mother who bartered a long
held virginity, stowage for every maiden
voyage and promised me to treasure it,
turning forever their daughters small feet
down to my ship
and sudden loss at sea.
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