from The Lady of Elche

“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita”

Dante Alighieri

—the droplet of water pierced by stone—
drop by drop wrote possibly
an ingress into life

else I eroded rocks or
crumbling sands or
resistant habitats
like caverns moored to the shoreline
is that the way to enter our “river wide as a sea”?

one night on the beach near my house at Honda
on the beach at Montevideo
the noctilucae coated us in alchemy
and we swam in sparkling water:
we two lovers dripping with lights
dazzled anyone hungering for love

farther off
in Maldonado at Verde beach
secluded below flinty Encandilada Rd
algae looped through my hair
and I panicked:
you could hear a song carried in by the sea
crackling waves infused it in their foam
—a premonition bringing me to tears—
when I sought the word
I found it and I disrobed it:
a mortal throbbing mouth alongside mine

and with underwater botany I made myself
soups and tortillas and the most soothing of cosmetics
all summer we consumed iodine and saltpeter
and in the Log we recorded our days of urges
and of ecstasies
but there was black tar
oil from a wrecked ship
once in a while at the shore
spotting our feet unawares

—there at the heart of life—

I sat in the comfortable arrogance
of a gorgeous beach
like someone motoring along assuredly
in the family car
then I turned a sinuous curve around anguish
toward Colorada Peninsula

where fell sometimes
falls Apollo’s ray
reddening the rocks
like the Fires at Delphi
distant cleft flaming mountain
where I heard the oracle:
“—I raised the laurel leaf
questions presented
I ate drum and drank cymbal”

fate and chance fought for me
hear their howls
they are the waves and the wind
without vanquished without victor
among the olive groves that open
to the Gulf of Corinth
(raisins from tiny grapes olives
figs roll across the table in my house
here when I was a girl)
or among the hours on this clock
in the background
in sand

from the River Plate embedded
in the Atlantic’s salty liver

I mutter a canto from Maldoror
it trails me is stealthy
that “silky gaze” of the great octopus
and the dark Whale lying
at the coast
surfaces its long unmoving back
like the Acheron, I thought,
then I remembered my whole history in a rush
as people do while they drown

I saw her Apparition, Punta del Este
spectral and future

—seeking nascent suns—
along the Greek slope by the Aegean Sea
columns at Poseidon’s temple
send up broken mother-of-pearl towers
and all is terrible and white
as the head of the horse in Guernica

I lived days and nights with the violent sun
demented Cyclops
and with the moon docile as a lamb
bleating mildly in my arms
I lived with the fiery sun
a ravaging creature
tongues of dark fire licked from its jaws
—Chinese ink printed
on fragile rice paper –
and I burned myself: leaving a cellar inside
black as charcoal I keep it just for me
and the watermoon came and it was a flood
of chilly silver
that negated fiery recesses
I lived with the vigilant sun
a guardian
maybe a prison of mirrors
a watchful syllogism?
then the mandrake moon stuck nightmares
and perversions into both sockets of my eyes

one Saturday at sundown
like that woman persecuted
by Goya: “You won’t get away”
I came to Devil’s Point
heaving waves broke over the prisoner
over the rocks
over the sand
in a persistent duty of violation
there was no surrender – true –
spewing foam via the mouth
waves toppled
over the exhausted resolve in those lips

there you’d see the sun come out – they told me –
but that was a fallacy
I knew it so I hid in blinds
to catch appearances off guard
I could only think
through smoky or yellowed haze
garlanded with violets
which looked like ill-proportioned medusas
sailing on the deceitful breeze
the breeze?
waters from the flat fold the sky
pale with wonders
in the place of birth
of false birth
the more I walked the more I aged

then I saw the salamander’s tail
glowing
drawing me toward the ocean’s deep
and thought about my mother about my son about love
about my sex half-open
like hands
in the game of offerings
you set out an egg
or a ring
and wait for resurrection