Nothing to Declare by Henri Cole

Author:Henri Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374713324
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

II

Our bodies every seven years are completely fresh-materiald … ’T is an uneasy thought that in seven years the same hands cannot greet each other again.

JOHN KEATS, from a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, September 17–27, 1819

HOTEL

My room is shaped like a cage.

The sun pushes its arm through the window.

But me—I want to smoke and make cloud images,

lighting my cigarette on the day’s glow.

I don’t want to work—I want to smoke.

(after Apollinaire)

CLEPSYDRA

After sustained winds,

a tidal surge, power outages,

waterlogged generators,

felled trees, and standing

on the roof,

I lay on the carpet,

letting the images

dart through me,

and thanked my life

for letting me be here,

while Albert mewed

and licked my eyelids

until they opened again,

like gold lamé

at a spa theater.

Then,

on the plasma screen,

water, fuel, and sewage

mixed

with debris,

a resilient rat blinked

at a flashlight beacon,

nurses carried

neonatal babies down

a dark stairway,

and fine sand painted

everything unnatural white.

When the wind howls

and a sea full of

compressed skulls

surges against

the windows,

we are all children.

It’s the oldest timepiece—

liquid dripping in a tub

until the little clay vessel

fills and sinks to the bottom,

and a bare hand plunges in

to empty and

float it again.

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