Untitled – Marina Burana

February 18, 2025

1.

the day draws a line and out of it
shapes come trying to make
the trees want their shadows
and play with the canopy
of a cloud gone wrong / we know
the hours are over and soon
a bird will teeter on a reflection
of the moon made of leaves
and we will not know more
than this / this murmur
of a color made of words / we
don’t know much and still we can
sit on the grass and dream
of dirt and death and birth / we
can follow this womb and see
its decay / and that makes us feel
taller than these trees / like
water running / to its source

2.

i went back to the neighborhood
and saw the power lines / the shoes
the same thighs on the old chair
resting on a dream of asphalt
and late sand / some children were
naked under the water, big bellies,
lips full of wanting words, and people
i don’t know standing outside
my house, trying to make out
the rhythm of the walls, to find
themselves somewhere bearing
the same color of the afternoon,
our shadows froze under a rock
and no one noticed / but me
and the old thighs ever-present
with two small hands in prayer,
or if not in prayer, holding a skirt
through which we peer into this world