how to immunize desire

            communicate with the dead

yell loud enough that they

            can hear you

                        from the other side

cannot accept

            day’s disappearance

            my life unbound

—

time between

            memories

—

she whispers in me

so the scent of a longing

                        gets dim

as if immortal

            my tree always

                        yielding

angel on fire

what loss could

            catch you there

            unslept unspent

                        sun

            time

            waning

            moonless

rosebud of

            a solitude

my city fills

            a cave of wonders

—

                        birds of spring

                        hiding in another body

            where’s the limit

            creatures crawl

                                    as one

be like them

            the air urges

                        keep getting caught

                        by mystery

            skylight lifting

                        to other

                                    moons

—

in deep wounding

            casual grief

answers come to bathe

            in different light

husk of matter

            stay a little longer

riding ferries

song sustaining

no wings left

the egg has dropped

—

I wanted to write

            about women

            wandering cities

waiting

I wanted to heal

            but now it is different

                                    to wander

and I’m burning

to shatter things

—

today is purple-gray

            the sun has split

                        divided through horizon

            so streets

                        are shorter

            bleak aligned

            hope flung

            hovering

                        memory in body

someone else

            has gone

            flight of objects

                        over

            air

                 waves

            missing

—

dreams imbue

            experience 

                                    bridges extend

                                                for us

            their turning arms

            in grace

a complex structure difficult to

                                                escape

breaking enclosure

                        the only option

            angel angry

                        hungry

                                    surging

            aching and ever

            exposed

—

beating

of wings against

my heart

limning spaces of

pain

& tenderness

—

a world where everyone is

                                    a vagabond

apocalyptic weather

                        heart in flames

I want your gradual

            luminescence

specularity

spectrality

sift through lyric raindrops

                        mystery withheld

desire to move against

                                    originating

                                                pain

gradual opening

            of a palm

eruption out of form

—

what was secret

is no more

daylight arriving at close of day

you cut me

            to the bone

with word and act

—

light falls rough in afternoon

                        flickering off

                        surfaces of

                        vehicular flight

in my dream the

blue journals of a

woman forgotten

                        by history

Sylvia Gorelick is a poet and translator who is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.