XII

For my heart is enough for you to perch on,
for your liberty is enough caution to my loss.
Before my mouth called you out of the sky,
your were sleeping underneath my soul.

Let's sip tea in the illusion of idle days.
You shake like the motor of a rusting Toyota.
You sweetly ascend to the horizon.
Eternally confusing the screwed up and the holy.

I'm talking that you sang in the winter
like the pines and the wolves.
Like them, you are high and you are hungry.
And you disappear like a jostled rabbit.

You coil like an old road.
You build ecologically and sing memories.
At times you flee and at times you just walk away
from the parrots nesting in your soul.

Copyright © 2003 Matt Mason All rights reserved
from Mistranslating Neruda
The New Michigan Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission