poem 11

Telling you this now is like holding
a flattened penny between my palms,
is like watching you out of the corner
of my eye in the morning, your eyes
getting used to the light. I’m telling you

I want to believe in god and here I am
pushing myself toward love with such velocity
that I think maybe a South American
poet could fall in love with me
now. We will break each other’s hearts.

I will learn exactly how
Borges feared the sea.

I will take that fear and bend it
into a tunnel that only this poet
and I could live in, huddled up
without waiting. Once I fell in love

with every stranger I ever met.
I would tell them how our days began
destined to meet each other,
fall in love and make each other
feel worth a damn.

It’s not until I give myself over
that even the sea will see
fit to take me.

Know: I want to run into something
hard with my body. Like spit
first hitting the oil, I want to fry.

I will go driving in the countryside,
die at the sound of a barn swallow,
myself and the machine
intimate with a strong tree.


-summer2009
marlo barrera