[1] Caravans are leaving tonight At the city gate. Marco listens And hears camel bells tinkling Deep in his dreams. Such is The sound of departing fate.

[2] You stray into strange towns, Where natives don’t speak Your private language. You Will jump about, wave your Arms, and make gargled noises

Hoping someone in the mob Will understand you. This Is also the story of all your Human speech, and of your Constant desire for barter.

Some things, however, aren’t Amenable to exchange: faces, Voices, and that word, standing For God in whatever language, Which always sticks in your throat.

[3] Marco wakes up. Out there moon Pools in Venetian canals and in The squares a wind paws around, Dressed in flowing oriental robes. He opens an book, and writes

Of beasts, to name which he has To invent non-existent words.

Your face is invisible this night, darkening, after shedding all of horizon’s bloody shreds.

What I had always to go by were words, and these, as you know will remain insufficient, inexact, and incapable of measuring the gap (is it an inch or a mile?) between what I say and what I will be unable to say. Yet my hunger for them is greater than constancy of such failures. Why?

Imagine a sea and a ship in it. All language is then a sea that holds me aloft. And even though I find myself gliding on it, the deepest desire I harbor is of drowning. Since you let me touch you only (and they say be thankful for what you have) with these feathers, these catamarans of words, and since I prefer the breathiness of drowning, what is whistling in this mutually invisible time is a wind of words.

I never made you anything With my hands, so now I will Make you a kite to fly in the wind.

First we need to build a frame. So here let’s use these two ribs Strong, white, beautiful.

Then we need to cut some light Paper into a square. Let’s use These poems, almost weightless.

Glue next? Something more sticky Than blood is what we need. This bottle Here has my collected tears. Nice.

Thread to bail this out into the sky? Let’s spin some out of my fur. Add some time. Add memory too.

Ah! Do you think we need a tail For stability and control? Let me Then staple our old jokes to it.

Here we go. Done. All set for takeoff! Go on now, take this kite and run outside. I will be right behind, in the air, flying.