Covered By One Blanket Poem by gershon hepner

Covered By One Blanket

Rating: 1.5


Covered by one blanket we
have whispered shameless words and heard
each other coming, blazing free
on saddles that control no herd,
on fire like two forests burning,
unquenched by waters as they flow
in orifices that we keep churning,
taking no note where we go
while both of us in darkness leap
into each others bodies till
we reach our destination, sleep,
where passions, after boiling, spill.

Inspired by a poem by Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott, and cited in a tribute to the poet in the NYR by Charles Simic:

The forests were on fire—
they however
wreathed their necks with their hands
like bouquets of roses
People ran to the shelters—
He said his wife had hair
Into whose depths one could hide
Covered by one blanket
they whispered shameless words
the litany of those who love
When it got very bad
they leapt into each others’ eyes
and shut them firmly
So firmly they did not feel the flames
when they came up to the eyelashes
To the end they were brave
To the end they were faithful
To the end they were similar
like two drops
stuck at the edge of a face



1/24/08

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