alicia6

                 Cosmic Distances
                             by
                        Al Eluya

The wrinkled tongues of Sugar pine cones
spoke to me in tongues, what else?
but I didn’t belong to the Congregation
and I couldn’t understand a word.
The same thing happened to us,
when our tongues stopped communion,
they dried out, just like Sugar pine cones,
and I could no longer comprehend
the liturgy of our sacred ceremonies.
It’s been a while since I saw you at home,
and though it’s true that we painted
our walls the color of bread and butter,
our potted geraniums never bloomed,
and the lizards in our garden not only
ate the insects but also the mossy greens.
My most precious treasure, the orange tree
I imported from Spain, died suddenly just
two weeks before your announcement.
If that wasn’t enough, yesterday the rain
soaked the carton boxes where I kept
your letters and 20 folded love poems.
Everything proclaims that the end is near,
now, when the end is already here.
Gossip is spreading that at night I take
trains to fill the empty space between
my arms with the luggage of two people.
The universe conspires for us to be apart,
but like planets held together by gravity,
though at great distances, we are always
aware of the proximity of our orbits, even
if it is to prevent a heavenly collision.

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