You never know where a poem will turn up. A few days ago I was reading some old entries on this blog and came across how someone had used my poem, "The Compass", on an actual compass. A writer in Paris contacted me and generously sent me one of these compasses from a friend of hers who had travelled in Asia. It's a pretty good poem and here it is once again.
On the four corners of the bed
the
body becomes a compass
describing
the direction
of
passion. Months of desire
arrive
at this destination,
rocking
on a single almost silent
wave
we are sheltered
by
darkness. The body
is
a compass needle;
you
turned me from east to west
awoke
a sleeping giant that moves
between
your mouth and breasts and legs;
the
room illuminated by static electricity
thrown
off by our bodies.
How
many decades did I sleep
waiting
only for you; I lust after you
in
all the directions of space.
Meeting
at the airport
your
foot touching my leg
beneath
the restaurant table,
we
secretly entered an empty banquet
hall
where the caterers chattered and
poured
drinks behind a wall partition
then
quickly leaving
we
found a deserted hallway
of
open office doors
where
we embraced.
All
the others in my life
fell
away, I was ready
to
abandon my old life for you,
for
the touch of your hand
and
mouth, the apple red and delicious
cut
in half that I eat.
Tied
to the four corners of love
as
to a bed which becomes a compass,
I
find you on your stomach,
on
your back, in the morning
lying
pressed against me.
It
is not possible to return
to
sleep now, it is not possible
to
forsake your touch and love,
black
lace, fingers, wetness,
your
mouth, words. The compass
needle
turns finding north switched
to
east and west to south, night
becomes
morning; nothing remains
as
it was. You pointed my life
in
a new direction, towards a corner
of
the world only dreamt of before.
Outside
the sun is red
descending
behind a row of trees,
shadows
fade into the other
unexplored
regions of night.
From: The Compass, (Book One, The Shadow Trilogy), Empyreal Press, Montreal, 1993
