4 poems
Two brief histories of my body
1. Body
Hoist. Into, out of, transitions desired or unwarranted or forged or examined. Or again new. Gendered regendered and then reconsidered towards multiple continua. Exploratives of the anticipatory, naming of most unnamables. Where it has been is, butterfly-like, where it shall return, and, not-butterfly-like, where it will no longer return.
2. Relation
Is a planet. Was a planet, now longing. Is a plane. Was a surface, now reaching multitudinously. Was a figure, now approaching inarticulable destination. Was a destination, now a cycle. Was a cycle, now approximating. Might be an approximation. Of the formidable and tenuous reaches of longing, awash and lovely.
Most of the Cusp
and my eyes, full of speech
and my subway state of memory
and I have temporarily repudiated the usual alarms
and I am gifted by a thin surprise of hope-scum in the cool air
and I am often made of light and sad
and I hold in my arms the the future of my flesh
and time forks away from me no matter how tightly I hold on
and the rain and the imagined
and there are some sentiments I can’t ever perceive
and all the overturned owls or was it souls
and I know, you think you’re just a thoughtful lily
and your body to the floor, your body on the floor
and this find was a hole, is it dangerous or slippery
and then I rest and I hear everything
and hurricanes hurling words at rubber houses
and the fact of the weather
and pursuit of a floor
and one steep outcome leads to another
and you share likable details about the desert outside
and I am delusion or thunder organ
and this tear dropped by the dream
and the secrets of those expecting
and I’ve got three hammer blows and a microphone
and I brighten into you
and I also predator drone you
and you orange lightly, looking briefly
and especially a softer tragedy
and a certain heaviness in the opening flesh
and it’s gauzy and the burning
and my cool air carrying the hope and the patience
and was it all just coincidence, the sun?
and lovable, curious, sad, and accident, a great wind, in brimming layers
and two more slices of the embedded depths
and this was to be the final restlessness
and I got separated from the good position
and I love you and here are some enhanced souls for consideration
and so light I even brightly lack
and most of the cusp is mine to perceive
CUSP UPON CUSP: COSMOPHONICAN QUESTIONS (7) Bilingual Translations
S戰T略R策A略T方E針G计Y
C墜R毀A崩S潰H撞E毀S
D下O跌W向N下
O在N
Y您O的U你R的
輕T率H不O小U心G粗H魯T欠L考E慮S魯S莽
LIGHT光
THE SHALLOW SWEAT OF TOMORROW’S FEET
Sawako Nakayasu’s most recent books are Some Girls Walk Into The Country They Are From (Wave Books), Say Translation Is Art (Ugly Duckling), Pink Waves (Omnidawn, forthcoming), Settle Her (Solid Objects, forthcoming), and an anthology of 20th Century Japanese Poetry (New Directions, forthcoming). She teaches at Brown University.