A map on which the names have been erased,
A compass pivoting on a black cross,
Sextants dismantled and displayed in a store
Razed and rebuilt in the Jewish Quarter—this is
How to draw coordinates for the next battle
On memory and desire, with a set of tools
No one knows how to use. And so the colonel
Peeling an orange at the command post
Hums an aria from La Bohème
Until a mortar lands outside his door.
__________
The trial will resume next week, if the judge
Survives the latest attempt on his life—though the jury
Impaneled for the duration of the war
Cannot reach a verdict in the case
Of the man gagged and hanging from the ceiling
Of the machine shop: the ghost prisoner,
AKA God’s beloved. His testimony
Must be thrown out, new witnesses examined,
And the court reporters banished before the judge
Can order him to be strung up again.
__________
Cicadas emerge, numbered and ranked, their clear
Wings beating—a light arriving from a star
Glimpsed from the depths of an abandoned mine.
We won’t make it out alive, the guide said
And tumbled down the shaft. What remains?
A shred of plastic flapping in the nest
The birds left in the hedge, a speckled egg
That never hatched, a file of summonses
Lost in the flood. The trees hum in the dark.
Pray for the guide. Pray for everyone.
__________
Heroic poses generate suspicion,
According to a poll taken on board
The wooden ship bound for the Orient.
Hence the captain’s orders are delivered
Through the sous-chef who signed up to resurrect
The art of navigating by the stars.
The first mate is afraid to leave his cabin.
The stowaway will lead the mutineers.
And the passengers will tell you anything
If you will take them safely to Ceylon.
__________
To break the back of the iambic line,
The prisoner in his metal cage, exposed
To sun and wind and rain, summoned a host
Of voices from the vast storehouse of his reading
And listening, and cast them on the page
Like glittering shells collected at high tide,
In a new line variable as the surf
He could no longer hear from his death cell
In Pisa: by the law, so build yr/ temple…
The verdict? Silence and unsentencing.
__________
The tower leans toward mystery. Which is to say:
The past, present, and future, the masonry
Of which is lined with cracks through which to glimpse
A second space—i.e. eternity.
Thus Mimi, coughing, seizes Rodolfo’s sleeve
To sing goodbye. Thus a seasick passenger
Prays for deliverance. And thus the poet charged
With treason marks off in the sand the days
Until his execution, while the colonel
Is buried with full military honors.
__________
After the torture and interrogations,
The water-boarding and sleep deprivation
And menstrual blood flung in his face, the ghost
Prisoner revealed the coordinates
For the Roman razing of Jerusalem
And the itinerary that John followed
To Patmos to compose his Revelation
For the seven churches in Asia. The guard
Removed her underwear. And from the throne
Proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices…
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem