Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2015  v14n1
poetryfictionnonfictiongalleryfeaturesbrowse
an online journal of literature and the arts
archive
 print preview
back GENTRIS L. JOINTE

The Other Side
because I am not a man or a poet or a leaf
but a wounded pulse that probes the things of the other side
by Federico García Lorca

Morning. The private life. The other side
of the bed kept cool. The window
still open, still an oppression. Rain

has chiseled paint from the windowsill.
What’s underneath resembles the body
of an ant. Only a moment is given

to transcribe this ruin, so what to describe? That world
of rust and off-white sheen, how
the paint chips fall, make odd shapes on the grass?

Or, the company of sky, the throat
of a songbird, the silence that settles around
a voice, the lone tree in the yard: wet, luminous.  end  


return to top