I am slowly acquiring the language I need to describe
fourth and third fingers, a pencil in your hand
I am merely imagining carries your slow pulse
in my palm when you place it to your mouth.

Tell me I may sleep an hour and let this
be our secret. Look at me in my crumpled
evening hour. Too late for siesta you tell me.

“Nothing” says Nietzsche “in this horoscope”
earlier or later than 4 a.m. A predilection I can
say at this point I have noticed a definite
change of routine. The siege shape of my body,
fallen warrior without the thousand ships.
Cold navigates to instigate

the way lost waters swell and rise
and fall. Adjust my daily reading to amend
some badly thought-out simulation.
World changes one perceives, if only
myths stayed true and honest
in their traded places.

Oh, tell me
             love,

when will the Oracle of Delphi
write me time has flown?
What day or lazy hour should
follow empathy without delay?
Those teeth foretold old
vows that Christ has killed
the beast, and closing
doors made peace with horror.
The killing blow betrays
a false regret,

but in your language, I am still a stranger.

Replenished by our planets’ timid mouse or maybe moon.
The heart’s unseen powers of magnification
I have yet
to find.

 

Jonathan Jones lives in Rome where he teaches English and American literature at John Cabot University