I Have to Believe that the Body Aspires to a Soul
I tell you/there was something about
that woman/her face/undiluted/ lips open/as if
she were waiting/for the sky to come/down on her.
There was something about it that/I needed to know/something
that/I wanted to remember/something/it was
the light/that mattered/this woman/gathered/the light/ held it
in-side of her/I should have/told her this/but I
suspected/myself/what I know/and don’t know of the
world/seemed/immense/I should have told her this/but she
crossed the street/she was/gone/and I had/nothing to do with it.
Love Song #7
you are for me as you cannot
be for yourself (a gathering)
I return to
without demand
with-out diminishment
your dark eyes
amethyst hidden
whose darkness is for a me
a form of prayer
a place of love’s rest
The Sea
I was going down in an elevator. I was in a building on the Upper
West Side. I remembered a dream I had about Jacques
Lacan. He was sitting with a woman in a hotel bar in Paris. She told him she had
grown up near the sea. He felt for her hand.
He moved her hand onto his thigh. She didn’t resist. Her hand moved
deep between his legs. He spread his legs and thought about the way
she had pronounced the word “sea.” Her voice sounded like a phono-
graph. It sounded like water running
down his spine.
I stepped out of the elevator and started towards the subway.
I remembered the word
“sea.” I tried to say the word in French. I mouthed the word. It tasted
like sweet
pear. I hid the word in the dark of my mouth. I pressed my mouth
to the window. I pressed it to the glass until my body dis-
appeared. The subway doors opened. And I floated out
luminous in the dark.
Love Song #4
You told me to remember you/You told me
Not to let go/Said it one day/And I
Heard it/Felt it like a bird
Lost in is own arithmetic/I need to
Find a way to/Think about these things/Of what
I am in your arms/When the night is
Everything/The stars agree/In their ascent
And I feel something rise in me/To love
Is to live with the Unknown in front of you
To recognize/That the sky is/A language
Written in the light of/Earliest birds
A text over water/Over time/Love me
Love me/Before I come undone
Before I say more, this song.
“I Have to Believe that the Body Aspires to a Soul” and other poems © Ann Pedone
Chris Murray 