silent other, sideless mirror (2008)

silent other, sideless mirror, gaze through which sabled murmur
pulls the threaded feathers, to dress the wedding dummy
her own hands, her flesh velour

she who gowns the world and drowns sorrows
with her alien eyes fixed to impenetrable beauty, gnarled,
and tightens the fine frailties of voice into raucous mesh

our nerves, the carnivorous spool, the light trapped within
the web, our teeth, the mind, the eating that is not eating, not eaten
and the great trails of color left by wandering hands

across the phantom hours and dours of night
i follow the wind-scattered pulse
across the grey scintillant gunks of the Meuse

to the tree-trestled street where the tombstones shine and whistle
deathless tunes of the Miners, the hill-men
who see you sewing the dresses of the one's ever glinting
on the border of the unborn

i walk again to your stainless window
to see the red leaves and castagne
laid by your hands in the lace of the sun
and recall your bifocals, intent, bent,

simply working mundanity
i have never been able to understand

Juin 11, 2008,
Liege, Belgique

notes:

The Meuse is the river that runs through Liege
where, walking one day, I recalled vividly a scene from Berlin.
The graveyard is in Berlin on the Bergmannstrasse.
"Bergmann" means "miner" or "man of the hills"
There is timeless shop there, a wedding dress,
a woman who clothes the brides, working alone, at times.
Her name is Milena Geburzi. Her last name, they say, means
"midwife".