Five Ghazals

Pull the drawstring to close the sea into a lake

Pull the drawstring to close the sea into a lake.The sea is wild but one can walk around the lake.

This small country is famous for its new bird park.Wings clipped, the pink flamingoes flower on the lake.

These birds of paradise are trimmed to map the walksso that their orange flames direct you to the lake.

A naked flame is dangerous. Replace the candlewith a lightbulb and hang the lantern over the lake.

The eye sees everything else at a proper distance.The weathered sign says twenty miles more for the lake.

The lover stands in no location but his feet.He is close to the lake. The lover is the lake.

To see flamingoes, flowers, flames as forms of sea,you must strip to the skin and enter, Jee, the lake.

Say, mouth, what happened to the Riesling in the glass

Say, mouth, what happened to the Riesling in the glass?He kissed me twice. My tongue will not let go the glass.

The wanting hard, the losing, or the death of want:to which catastrophe does your hand raise a glass?

His beautiful neck was strong as a piece of ropeby which he raised his head so slowly from his glass.

My hours are filled to the brim with his absence.There is no more room for the elbow in the glass.

His body poured a sparkling white into his legsthe way a bottle is intended for a glass.

The heart is finally a form of repetition.We flip the body to restart the hourglass.

It's time to shut up, Jee, and sink your nose in wine.You don't know yet the taste of drowning in a glass.

It is not true that what ascends a flight of stairs

It is not true that what ascends a flight of stairsmust reach a branch of stars. We too descend by stairs.

I was so wrong to think that lovers will make equals.A step is higher—or else lower—on the stairs.

Eager to bring you home, I thought only of bed.When you left me unsatisfied, I thought of stairs.

You leave me in a dark hallway smelling of shoes.Does a kiss make a step? Two kisses make a stairs?

Last night I had sex with a white man and a black.We kept switching places and rolled down the stairs.

I'd rather walk a length of town than take a bus.Do you prefer the elevator to the stairs?

Your voice answers from somewhere, faint and powerful:Stop running, Jee. Stay for a night. Come up the stairs.

The body is rather small but it is all the house

The body is rather small but it is all the houseI have, and so I walk round naked in my house.

First man I fell in love with lived in ignorance.We walked his dog when visiting his parents' house.

I have dreamed all my life of living by the sea,listening to the waves dissolving the stone house.

You said of your first love, we brought each other up.I ached with homesickness because I heard the house.

I have objections to the institution of marriage.I suspect efforts to turn love into a house.

Love is not a house. It is always on the move.What does a lasso have in common with a house?

A long day runs its dog into the horizon.Jee does not think a line can rise to be a house.

I miss my train and end my travels in a station

I miss my train and end my travels in a station.I cannot ride the whistle of wind out of the station.

He had a feeling for vast things that come and go.He came from a small country with one train station.

Today, like yesterday, work will be riding the train.The other constant change is passing Bliss Street station.

The 7 train rattles my window at...