Art and poetry on page and stage

gift box

14

David Gershator

EPIPHANY

What about poor
Epiphany
she ran off with
another lost soul
to another country
and I’m left with a photo
and her dark eyed sister
Melancholy
as I fall thru fields of gravity
the foam of languages
I still don’t know on my lips

I won’t ask anyone to kiss me
the heat melts my bones
I’m spitting blood
from love bites
who knew it would
come to this
I have to stop singing
or lose my voice

I chew on stalactites
to maintain a cool head
and keep my tongue
wagging in its cave

FOR THE ONE WHO LIT UP THE ROOMS

I bury my morning face
in the ground of your illumination

and you disappear with my face
in the fingers of your departure

I didn’t bargain for a mask
or the death of ceilings

I didn’t ask for a clock running on salt
or a show of frozen gloves

I bury my voice
in the sound of your breath

and you give me back my face
my lamps, my voice

you, my power source my light switch
the one who lit up every room

you made the night a present
from Orion to the Pleiades

I have one gift left and the mirror
of your evaporation can’t take it away

DAVID GERSHATOR’s latest poetry collection is AZTEC AUTOPSIES. His work has appeared in several anthologies and in The Caribbean Writer, Contemporary Haibun, and Home Planet News, among other journals. Received an NEH grant and NY State CAPS Award, co-authored seven books for children, and translated/ edited Lorca’s letters for New Directions. www.davidgershator.com

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