Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Gray by Melissa Campana


Gray
I’m not buoyant without you.
Thoughts strangle each other
As they come into apperception
And are quickly drowned
With interpretations.

I never meant for this to
Eventuate
-I never thought it would.
But we will be cured
Together or apart.

I am an earthquake in your arms
Each tremble and shake
My heart races with anxiety
That this could be the last time
I find myself here.

I don’t know who to talk to
I don’t know where to go
You’ve been my life
And all that I’ve known
But the time has come to let you go.

Echo
TRANSLATED BY FORREST GANDER


It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product—
Airs no Oceans keep—
—Emily Dickinson
Afloat between your lens   
and your gaze,   
the last consideration to go   
across my gray matter   
and its salubrious   
deliquescence   
is   
whether or not I’ll swim,   
whether I’ll be able to breathe,   
whether I’ll live like before.   

I’m caught in the bubble   
of your breath.   
It locks me in.   
Drives me mad.   

Confined to speak alone,   
I talk and listen,   
ask questions and answer myself.   
I hum, I think I sing,   
I breathe in, breathe in and don’t explode.   
I’m no one.   

Behind the wall   
of hydrogen and oxygen,   
very clear, almost illuminated,   
you allow me to think   
that the Root of the Wind is Water
and the atmosphere   
smells of salt and microbes and intimacy.

And in that instant comes   
the low echo   
of a beyond beyond,   
a language archaic and soaked   
in syllables and accents suited   
for re-de-trans-forming,   
giving light,   
giving birth to   
melanin   
hidden within another skin:   
the hollow echo of the voice   
which speaks alone.   


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