Fragments Fragments

When dawn, wearing golden sandals, awoke me, I began to crawl, burning, shivering, to my uncurtained window; Migrating birds streamed over the dark sea.   Who can quench the ingenious fires of cruelty? I was dreaming of white-fetlocked horses conferring in a meadow When dawn, wearing golden sandals, awoke me.   On my stopped loom, a sort of landscape: icy Peaks, serrated as daggers; a corpse, and beside it a crow, And migrating birds streaming over the dark sea.   Fat, autumnal flies alight on my sheets, rainbow-hued, dizzy; This one on my wrist--its mandibles quiver, its gibbous eyes glow... Then dawn, wearing golden sandals, awoke me.   Merciless daughter of Zeus, immortal Aphrodite, Come to me, sing to me, low-voiced, in sorrow Of migrating birds that stream over the dark sea.   Cast aside your spangled headband: in my mirror I see You beneath these stringy locks, puckered lips, and tearstained cheeks... go, Migrating birds, stream over the dark sea; And dawn, wearing golden sandals, awake me.

Jun 24, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Mark Ford