To Pablo Neruda
Again & again
I have read your books
without ever wishing to know you.
I suck the alphabet of blood.
I chew the iron filings of your words.
I kiss your images like moist mouths
while the black seeds of your syllables
fly, fly, fly
into my lungs.
Untranslated, untranslatable,
you are rooted inside me-
not you-but the you
of your poems:
the man of his word,
the lover who digs into the alien soil
of one North American woman
& plants a baby-
love-child of Whitman
crossed with the Spanish language,
embryo, sapling, half-breed
of my tongue.
I saw you once-
your flesh-
at Columbia.
My alma mater
& you the visiting soul.
Buddha-like
you sat before a Buddha;
& the audience
craned its neck
to take you in.
Freak show-
visiting poet.
You sat clothed
in your thick
imperious flesh.
I wanted to comfort you
& not to stare.
Our words knew each other.
That was enough.
Now you are dead
of fascism & cancer-
[...] Read more
poem by Erica Jong
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
