A N N E   T A R D O S   &   L Y N   H E J I N I A N
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I WILL WRITE TWO LINES

 

2005

 

1

I will write two lines, knowing that you will insert a third line between them
Late one afternoon in a café. I'll offer you a sequence and you won't foresee the consequence—
Therefore my second line's connection to my first will depend largely on you

And that will be the poetry we make. Music will intervene, but we won't complain
About interventions, but accept what happens happily, while hoping
That non-sequiturs don't make any sense. When I write, I'll attach my lines

To whatever music these strings will form—we won't complain
About the things we can't control (aggressive friends, traffic jams, the neighbor's dog);
The other speaker, who could be me, will intersperse her thoughts with mine

Just as laughter wafts through tragedy. I'm not referring to the nervous giggles,
The repressed hysteria, beads of sweat, and the twitching bladder contractions
I used to get when my shell-shocked uncle shed tears recounting the horrors of war.

Imagining future horrors is a popular pastime, which is only worthwhile
If people have other expectations, exciting plans. The imagination then can play with horrors and
If such an imagination prompts us to act in their prevention

(Since pleasures, too, are products of invention), then more power
Will be needed after the lightning storm that forced me to disconnect all computers and pay attention
To it. Awhile back, for instance, I imagined you in a French café

Where I sat, sipping a kir royale and imagined you in your garden—
The cineraria are stellar—myriad too—and you'd delight in nibbling at the nasturtia,
Your every move surreptitiously watched by the neighbor's cat

Being watched in turn by another cat. Historiography must be like that—the product
Of feline obsession with the art of observation they use in the gauging
Of a line of watchers producing a lineage of watchers, some hardly distinguishable from others

And so these nasturtia-nibbling cats wait until you leave your garden to do their nibbling
So very like rabbits that I expect to see them stop, sit up, turn ears, and hop. But they are cats and happy
While keeping perfectly still and invisible for as long as is required.

You are far away and invisible too, as is the wind, though it is close, making itself
Known by moving lines that are the branches of the visible trees.

 

n e x t

 

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