Gina Wilson
The Poem
I
We’re escaping the heat,
roses collapsing in the dark
before thunder. I’ve brought in
a handful of petals.
You’re reading in German,
stopping to translate field flowers
whiter than edelweiss
cooler, more elegant.
Our sheet breathes
when we move,
rising and falling
folding us in air.
II
Will it last beyond death
this reading,
when the sound
of your snatched breath
slowly exhaling
words I don’t understand
is silent in silence?
Will I tramp empty
streets between bookshops
searching for only this poem?
III
If that silence had fallen
and I had tramped the streets
and found the book,
and if I had managed to translate
the poem,
word by tortuous word,
but still didn’t know
what it meant
would it mean
we had never met
and been together
this electric night
of heat and roses,
your chest rising and falling,
the air still becoming
your breathing?
Page(s) 178-179
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