Larissa Shmailo

Jamás Volveré

To touch the sidereal limits with the hands—Otero

To see you is to see a brown bird

flash against a black sky - I shudder.

Gone are the stars that are not the sun

that punctuate heights no longer heights,

heights become space. Things I will never know

with my proximity senses are gone, all gone:

I will never hear a star upon this earth,

But I feel the warm gusts your wings stir up.

If, in the daytime, I were to leave bread and fruit for you,

you might come again. I am not so different from

the mangrove swamp where you play.

***

 

He follows her

 

He follows her with his voice; she sees him with her skin,

and drinks him with her hands, in the storm touch which

will crush his chest against her breast. The poppies pour

 

their juice in the red rain which will crack, in time, all o-

ther things. She drinks him with her hands. He follows

with her breast. She sees him with his chest, in this bo-

 

dy not her own, but which, in the night, is hers. Like the

heat that swells all  things, she sings the night with him.

He follows her with his voice; she sees him with her skin.

***

 

Dancing with the Devil 

They say that if you flirt with death

You’re going to get a date;

But I don’t mind - the music’s fine,

And I love dancing with someone who can really lead.

***

***