Whenever I put myself thru A washer-dryer of words, Some of which strike others as poetic, I wonder if I will ever be able to freely Unfurl my own tongue.

A tongue that speaks mostly to itself, In that language it has read often But had never heard another tongue speak. The anguished language of laughter, Of pained expression and of what is often Failed communication.

A tongue that becomes an object of self hate, A tongue that people squint at when it is wagged As if the tap of flesh against teeth is a secret code, As if the air blowing out of the gullet is a vaudeville act, As is the glaze in their eyes is not a change of channels, But only unexpected problems with my audio system.

So yes, check! 1-2-3, check! There I finally have your attention. Here take this page and wave it, Yes, wave it like a flag. This is my tongue.

I walk out of the crowd, Holding my holds close to the chest Like shut doors, a bud Which will not open, shrunk leaves Of a touch me not plant.

Lines of the unspoken conversation Dribble from my pursed lips. So much useless spittle, I think As I spit. A line goes arcing into the cold, Freezing and breaking as it falls to the road.

We didn’t talk. But then what was there To tell or hear? Let everything be A revelation such as this heat of your presence I hold in my clenched fists.

A river, suffering because/ Reflections of clouds and trees/ Are not clouds and trees.

• Milosz

Sun, after three days of dripping Rain, came out young, concealing Its immense age, throwing off glints of forsythia.

You too came at the predestined Hour, a curved jonquil, gazing at the world With two feline eyes of heat.

I was already waiting in the throbbing Light, a book, open and aging On my lap, trying to forget and remember,

That age when I first understood That some truths are lies and vice versa, Or that age when I didn’t know any words.

Beauty, time, leaping shadows, letters, Steamboats, news and feelings arrived with you. And then departed, their horns echoing into the evening.

But now I am here A tree on the bank, suffering because The water in which I see myself at this barely lit hour Is not the water before you came.