Poetry Magazine, Carlos Martinez, December/January 2002-2003

Poetry Magazine

Carlos Martinez

USA

Threnody

The scuttering wind yaws scrub pine
and windows tremble to the lover’s touch of air
while in the fireplace what is left of what we dreamt

dances on blackening logs and our silence absorbs
all of our attention. Married for so many years,
our feet point away from each other and our bent toes

know when to move and when to stay still while fingers
play with what is left of our hair, or pick our noses,
or scratch the sores that appear mysteriously,

more of them year after fucking year until in the living room
we can’t stand the silence anymore and rise as if levitating
to find ourselves in other rooms, as if we are lost children,

or wayward domestic creatures that thought running away
would be a great adventure, more of the world to see,
more to do if we were without each other, but all we do

is sit again in chairs whose shapes remind us of the other,
the sag and droop of upholstery molded after ours,
whose teeth sit side by side next to the bed, drowned

in water we never change.


( Originally published in Pontoon #5, 2001; 
an anthology from Floating Bridge Press)

Unrhymed elegy in 13 lines 
for Randall Jarrell

He was such a happy and beautiful man,
what could ever go wrong, except maybe

the Germans, who always wanted everything,
usually the world, so that when the war

was over and the ball turret scrubbed so clean 
it gleamed in the dark hangar of his mind,

he decided to go for a walk because
the days were beautiful again, like him,

so that he crossed the street without looking
because on the other side he saw

the light in a different way and being 
suddenly in a hurry

he couldn’t wait for anything.


( Originally published in Pontoon #5, 2001; 
an anthology from Floating Bridge Press)