Marilyn Hacker
GHAZAL: kana bahrun m’a beini wa beiniki
Was there loyalty, envy, devotion between us?
More like a dizzying pendulum’s motion between us.
After the silence and the damp morning chill
a new conversation would grate like corrosion between us.
There was too little or too much to say,
not enough words, too much emotion between us.
Who’ll be the first to make the indelible move,
pick up and drink down the vial of potion between us?
Orgasmic fireworks were a metaphor:
there was a different kind of explosion between us.
Must a mountain crumble before we can really speak?
Must I wait for an aeon’s erosion between us?
The morning light spells its name on my white coffee cup
but it aches with absence: there is an ocean between us.
