SELECTED FOR
May 23, 2011 Verse Daily
Web Weekly Feature

A Poet of Medieval Spain

The caliph gone. The moon
unrisen in the garden.
In the tall grass, a gazelle.

This isn’t a young love.
I know you

and I don’t.
I’m pouring
a second cup of wine.

Almonds. Figs. The slow
highway I trace
in the valley of your spine
and beyond: we are
not required to
complete the design —
we have no permission to refrain.

A breeze from the coast,
ripened on oranges,

scatters a flock of swallows
with one hand,
a spray of terns with the other.

Wind that speeds the journey,
wind that splinters masts,

I fear what comes next.

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